Good Afternoon!
What a Wednesday we had! Enjoy the pictures!
Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and fresh oranges.
Lunch– Scrambled eggs with whole wheat bread, fresh apples/oranges, and fresh carrots/cherry tomatoes.
PM snack– Tortilla chips and hummus.
Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots/peppers.
Have a great night!
-Mindy
Link to pictures: WF 1/9
Good Afternoon.
To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.” Maria Montessori
While we had added in these fun, and colorful Duplo blocks prior to break, Miss Tami added the green Duplo boards on top of a shelf for even more enjoyment.
This activity enhances color recognition, hand-eye coordination, cognitive awareness, and the use of the child’s imagination.
Jack and his friend Evie displayed great parallel play while engaged in the Duplo activity. Parallel play is defined as, “A form of play in which children play adjacent to each other, but do not try to influence one another behavior.” (www.en.m.wikipedia.org)
This type of behavior typically begins after a child turns one, but we do tend to see this play more often in older children around two years of age.
We were able to go outdoors today and it was wonderful! We LOVE our new environment, but we also were very excited about going outside to play.
We were happily greeted by our older friends and teachers in the preschool classroom as well. What a great day!!
Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios and pears.
Lunch: Whole wheat flour tortillas with hummus, corn and peas, along with oranges.
Snack: Whole grain cinnamon raisin bagels with butter and apples.
Wee Sprout: Corn.
Have a fantastic night.
Marty
LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljaITYizB0lsH92CvVg
Happy Tuesday!
**A reminder that Wee Friends will be closed on Friday, February 15th for conferences! Thank you!
The art table is open all day, every day which gives children unlimited opportunities to write, draw, and explore using their fine motor skills. During journaling time, it is a ten to fifteen minute time frame where we horn in on writing skills, letters, sounds, etc. It is extremely age appropriate because at the age of 3, children are not usually ready for this step. However, 4 and 5 year old children are ready for a more structured writing experience.
During journal time, children are asked to draw a picture. There are no rules or suggestions given by teachers. This is a time where children use their imagination. After they’re finished, we work with children to write a description about their journal. Depending on their readiness, children either use kid spelling or collaborate with a teacher to write the description. We’ve been working on letter identification along with the sounds that letters make. It is an ongoing process where children thrive and continue to grow in their knowledge and confidence.
“Generative knowledge describes children’s abilities to write phrases and sentences that convey meaning. It is the ability to translate thoughts into writing that goes beyond the word level (Puranik & Lonigan 2014). During early childhood, teachers are laying the foundation for generative knowledge as children learn to express themselves orally and experiment with different forms of written communication, such as composing a story, writing notes, creating lists, and taking messages. Children can dictate words, phrases, or sentences that an adult can record on paper, or they can share ideas for group writing.”
https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/nov2017/emergent-writing
Our Tuesday was full of exploration in various areas of the environment. It feels so good to get back to our normal routine!
Breakfast– Chex and fresh raspberries.
Lunch– Hummus on whole wheat tortillas, fresh apples, and fresh cucumber/pepper.
PM snack– Whole wheat plain bagel with cream cheese and fresh pears.
Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumber/pepper.
Have a fantastic evening.
-Mindy
Link to pictures: WF 1/8
Happy New Year and Welcome back! We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season.
“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and strength, use it to create.” ~Maria Montessori
We want to give a HUGE thanks to Tami and her husband Charles for making the Wee Wee classroom even more beautiful than it already was.
Tami and Charles worked the entire two weeks of vacation to beautify and make our classroom better than ever.
We are VERY fortunate to have Tami’s awesome ability to envision such miraculous ways to make our classroom its very best! THANK YOU TAMI & CHARLES, YOU GUYS ROCK!
The new dramatic play/housekeeping center was a big hit with our friends today! We have new activities within the center as well and the brand new construction that our friends were so excited about.
We have new blocks to build and create with, we have loose part activities, and a new reading center. There was so much for us to engage in and we LOVED every minute.
Breakfast: Whole wheat toast with butter and banana.
Lunch: Whole grain pasta with butter and shredded chicken, fresh cucumber, and grapes.
Snack: Whole milk Greek yogurt with graham crackers.
Wee Sprouts: Peas.
Have a wonderful night!
Marty
LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljaEf8F_UFwY8ECK8-A
Welcome back!
We hope everyone had a terrific break!
K/PREK1 group read, ‘The Snail and the Whale’ before looking at our new journal calendar for the upcoming year! We were so excited to look through it and find our own journal page! Children were thrilled to get back to our journal routine as most of us are identifying letters and several letter sounds.
PREK2 made a web during group that focused on classroom rules. A few rules that were stated were, “no hitting”, “no stealing toys”, “no running into the street”, and “no pushing”. Friends talked about these rules and why we have them here at Wee Friends!
Our Monday was full of children recapping their break to their friends and getting back into their routine! We were able to make it outside for a little bit this morning which allowed us to get some fresh air.
Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with peanut butter and fresh banana.
Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with butter and shredded chicken, banana/fresh oranges, and fresh cucumber.
PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with fresh raspberries.
Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumbers.
Have a great night!
-Mindy
Link to pictures: WF 1/7
Happy Friday!
We hope you and your family have a safe and happy holiday and new year! See you in 2019!
Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and fresh banana.
Lunch– Peanut butter and whole wheat bread, string cheese, fresh pineapple/oranges, and fresh broccoli/cucumber.
PM snack– Block cheese and pretzels.
Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumber/broccoli.
-Mindy
Link to pictures: WF 12/21
Happy Friday!
“The Sensitive Period: It comes for a moment but its benefits last for a lifetime.” ~Maria Montessori
Our friends just love pajama day. Enjoy our Jammie pictures. 
We hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season filled with love, and family! Travel safely to all of you that will be spending your holidays away. We will see you all in 2019!
Breakfast: Whole wheat toast with butter and cinnamon, and clementine’s.
Lunch: Whole wheat bread with cream cheese turkey lunchmeat rollup, carrots, and banana.
Snack: Whole grain cheese crackers, and cheddar block cheese.
Wee Sprouts: Carrots.
Have a great weekend.
Marty
LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljZ51UjFHoT5ieyoXQA
Good Afternoon!
**We want to send a HUGE thank you to Miss Melinda and her ‘Star Carolers’ for entertaining us yesterday with several holiday songs. It was such a treat and we all enjoyed it so much!
Our journal experiences were full of meaningful thoughts today. Maxwell journaled about his family around his Christmas tree with several presents. When he was done journaling, he wanted to write out the names of his family members. Our older friends are really grasping letter sounds, consonants especially! In both K/PREK1 and PREK2, children are encouraged to write their own journal descriptions either by themselves (kid spelling) or by focusing on letter identification with the help of teachers.
We read different stories throughout the morning, either sitting quietly by ourselves or while snuggled up next to a teacher. Reading stories is the number one most important step in the literacy journey!
“Free choice is one of the highest of all mental processes.”
-Maria Montessori
Breakfast– Kashi Blueberry Clusters and fresh pears.
Lunch– Brown rice with shredded chicken, fresh banana/pears, and fresh cucumber.
PM snack– Peanuts and graham crackers.
Wee Sprout– Fresh cucumber.
Have a fantastic evening.
-Mindy
Link to pictures: WF 12/20
Good Afternoon All!
“Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.” ~Maria Montessori
Don’t forget tomorrow is pajama day! We can’t wait to see everyone in their comfy jammies to end our last day of school for the 2018 year.
We started our day by engaging our minds and hands in a couple different fine motor activities. Puzzles and coloring are just two of our favorite fine motor activities.
While working with the puzzles, we also can learn and begin to understand the colors and shapes of the pieces while getting them into their correct spaces as well as utilizing our hand-eye coordination skills.
While working with the crayons we also learn our colors, utilize our hand-eye coordination skills and can even start to understand the correct way to hold a writing object.
The weather this week has really been cooperating with us and we all LOVE it! The mornings have been a tad chilly so we have went out in the afternoon, but today… we were able to go outside in the morning. 
We LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our outside time.
Breakfast: Whole grain Kix cereal and pears.
Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with shredded chicken, broccoli, with pears and clementine’s.
Snack: Graham crackers and mozzarella string cheese.
Have a fantastic evening.
Marty
LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljZ4WXtdaZm9NZ1PW3w
Good Afternoon!
Enjoy the pictures from our day!
Link to pictures: WF 12/19
Link to pictures from Star Carolers: WF 12/19 Carolers
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Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and fresh raspberries.
Lunch– Scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, whole wheat tortilla, fresh oranges/banana, and fresh cucumber/peppers.
PM snack– Blue corn chips and refried beans.
Wee Sprout– Fresh peppers.
Have a great night!
-Mindy