Happy Monday!

Several friends have shared their pumpkin picking experiences with us lately which lead both of our group sessions today!

K/PREK1 read two books today surrounding pumpkins. We identified Pooh’s Pumpkin as a fiction story (even though several friends shared that Pooh is REAL at Disney World) and Perfect Pumpkin as a non-fiction story. In each story, we pulled information about pumpkins and how they are grown. A few things we learned:

1. Pumpkins are fruit, not vegetables. They belong to the Gourd family.

2. After the vine grows, a flower will appear which later turns into a green pumpkin before becoming orange.

3. Pumpkins start with a pumpkin seed. They need water and sun to grow (Grady also added it needs love to grow!).

After reading both stories, we came up with several things that we learned and filled our web of pumpkin knowledge!

K.W.5: With support, build understanding of a topic using various sources. (Identify relevant pictures, charts, grade- appropriate texts, personal experiences, or people as sources)

PREK2 gathered to talk about pumpkins as well (it’s been a hot topic!). Each child got a book about pumpkins and shared something that they learned after looking at the pictures in their book.

The art table has been full of wonderfully curious children lately. Today, Franklin joined one of his peers as they worked on their letters. This happened without any teacher prompting; just pure interest of letters! Franklin ran up to a teacher and said, “Look at my letters!”

Our imaginations were in high gear as we used toys throughout the environment to make:

• A zoo using magnets and animals/dinosaurs. Each space had to be specific to the size of each dinosaur.
• Video games using maps as the screen. Franklin and a friend held pretend controllers in their hands as they looked at their map screen!

“Every child is gifted. They just unwrap their packages at different times.”

Breakfast– Whole wheat cinnamon raisin bagels with butter and fresh apples/blackberries.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with butter and shredded beef, PPC mango/banana, and fresh carrots/cucumber.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt and PPC raspberries.

Wee Sprouts– PPC cucumber/fresh carrots.

Have a great evening!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 10/22

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

“Mistakes are proof that you are trying.” ~Pinterest.com

We would like to extend a very warm congratulations to the Sieradzki family, as they welcomed their precious baby boy into the world Sunday. We Can’t wait to meet him.

The habi-trail area is a very exciting area to engage our bodies in. We can expand our gross motor skills by climbing the ladder portion of the habi-trail, and we can also ignite our confidence level by our end result of successfully climbing to the top wrung of the ladder. Our friends have quickly learned that they must hold on tight to the ladder to ensure a safe climb!

Parallel play generally happens by the time our Wee Wee Friends turn two years of age, sometimes later, but typically no later than by the age of three. Parallel play involves two or more children in the same room who are interested in the same toy/activity. They are not specifically playing together, but along side one another.  Daniel, Jack and a few others are experiencing this type of play while we were outside having fun!

Breakfast: Whole grain English muffin with cream cheese, and apples.

Lunch: Whole wheat pasta noodles with butter and shredded beef, peas, and apples.

Snack: Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts: carrots.

Have a fantastic evening.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljPxjlrSr9Gx2PQE5zQ

Happy Birthday Ms. Mindy!

The art table was a hoppin’ place to be today. Most of our older friends are out on vacation, so our three and four year olds took over the table. Today they worked with stencils, scissors, and the all time favorite-markers. A few of them chose to make some hairy and very scary monsters/ghosts. Others took it upon themselves to make their own birthday gifts and envelopes.

Of course, our friends’ imagination doesn’t stop at the art table. Today Grady built a baby out of blocks, and Mack collected pebbles and leaves for treasure.

In group time today, PreK2 discussed why we use measuring cups/spoons. A couple of them mentioned that we use them to make cookies. Each of them were given two choices, and were asked which one could hold the most/least. They were all able to identify which could hold more/less, and why this was the reason.

Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with peanut butter & PPC blackberries

Lunch: Ham & cheese sandwiches on whole grain bread, PPC Tomatoes, & apples

PM Snack: Vegan muffins & cheesy corn puffs

Wee Sprout: Carrots & PPC cucumbers

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Ms. Kim

LINK TO PICTURES:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljPwUICSfWPFAZs66Ug

Good Friday Afternoon. I hope you all had a fantastic week.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.” ~Henry Ford

Enjoy the pictures from our Friday!

Breakfast: Whole grain cinnamon raisin bagel with cream cheese and PPC clementine’s.

Lunch: Whole wheat/grain flatbread with ham slices and shredded cheese, corn, and apples.

Snack: Whole grain cheese crackers and cheddar cheese along with special birthday treat from Miss Mindy…. a yummy blueberry muffin.

Wee Sprouts: Peas.

Have a great weekend.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljPtvgfapgiWcFGQcEg

Good Afternoon!

“Teachers play an important role in the development of 3-5 year olds’ emergent writing by encouraging children to communicate their thoughts and record their ideas (Hall et al 2015).

Pre-writing skills start with our youngest friends while our goal is for older preschoolers and especially kindergarteners to embark on the world on kid spelling. This morning, the welcome activity was exploring different pre-writing strokes using wooden pre-writing boards. These boards help children’s fine motor become comfortable making certain motions (circle, straight lines, etc.). We saw these fine motor skills transfer from our welcome activity to the art table where three and four year olds used markers to make specific, deliberate marks.

I attached an article from the NAEYC (National Association for the Education of Young Children) that goes into quite a lot of detail about emergent writing and what that looks like at each age.

https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/nov2017/emergent-writing

Breakfast– Corn chex and PPC clementines.

Lunch– Brown rice with shredded pork, PPC banana/mango, and PPC cauliflower.

PM snack– Peanuts and wheat thins.

Wee Sprout– PPC cauliflower.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF, 10/18

Good afternoon. What a beautiful day today.

“The secret of joy in work is contained in one word – excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.” ~ Pearl Buck

After breakfast our friends are always very eager to start their day by having a teacher read to them. Today, Miss Annastecia was more than happy to read. A story called, The Very Busy Spider was chosen and friend’s couldn’t hear it enough. This is a fun story all about a spider who was very busy with spinning a web and that she didn’t have time to play with all the animal friends wanting to play with her.  As Miss Annastecia read, our friends were very excited and enthusiastic to tell her what sounds all the animals make that are in the story. We heard, moos, baaa’s, oink oinks, and many other funny animal sounds. We had such a great time.

We then moved onto a different activity later in the day. Daniel had asked for the colorful circle rings to play with. Upon getting these fun rings down, Miss Marty asked friends what they thought we should do with them. We ended up placing them on the floor to step in, we placed them over our necks and wore them a necklaces, and we even made a floor pattern to dance through and in them. We also talked about the colors and shape of the circles.

Breakfast: Whole grain Chex cereal with PPC banana.

Lunch: Whole grain rice with shredded pork, corn, and PPC kiwi.

Snack: Pretzels and mozzarella string cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Carrots.

Have a fantastic evening.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljPp-CApEYa9FBpijkA

Happy Wednesday!

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” ~ Napoleon Hill

The sensory scarves are a great activity for a multiple educational learning experience. Friends can feel the texture of the scarf, they can use their hand-eye coordination to pull the scarves out of the tissue box and then put it back in again, we can learn the color of the scarf, and also start to understand the concept of being able to see through particular items that we play with on a daily basis.

Breakfast: Whole grain Cheerios and fresh PPC banana.

Lunch: Scrambled eggs with shredded mozzarella cheese, whole wheat buttered toast, peas, and fresh PPC banana.

Snack: Whole wheat/grain Ritz crackers with cheddar cheese slices.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a wonderful evening.

Marty

LINK TO PICTURES: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuljPpMZI2sPTsufaf9sQ

Good Afternoon!

K/PREK1 read a story about being different and the physical differences that we see in people. After we finished the story, children took turns coming up to the chalkboard. They were given two words and they had to decide which word was correct. For example, Maxwell came up to the chalkboard and had to decide which was heavier: a carrot or a cucumber. Once he figured out the answer, he put a sticker on the correct word. There were a few that we were unsure of so we used our friends to help guide us!

K.M.1: Make direct comparisons of the length, capacity, weight and temperature of objects, and recognize which object is shorter, longer, taller, lighter, heavier, warmer, cooler, or holds more.

PREK2 used Montessori beads to compare and contrast length. We tend to use descriptive words such as longer, shorter, more, and less. Each child had a turn to come into the center and talk about what they saw as far as the different lengths of the Montessori bead strands laying in front of them.

Some of our friends started painting their small pumpkin today! We used small paint brushes to cover the pumpkin before having the option of gluing two eyes onto it!

Maxwell asked, “What’s next?!”, after he was done painting his pumpkin. So, we started a color exploration using three different water colors. As Maxwell and Ruby mixed their colors together, they saw them change and noted the changes that they were seeing!

Hope everyone has a ‘relaxing’ evening.

“Children are great imitators, so give them something great to imitate.”

…in Franklins case, a bear .

Breakfast– Whole grain oatmeal with honey and PPC clementines.

Lunch– Scrambled eggs with whole wheat flatbread, PPC kiwi/banana, and PPC peppers/fresh carrots.

PM snack– Popcorn & Raisins

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots.

-Mindy

The link is currently not working—I will post it tomorrow . Thanks!

Good Afternoon!

Enjoy a few pictures from our Tuesday!

Breakfast– Kix and PPC blackberries.

Lunch– Refried beans and shredded cheese on whole wheat flatbread, fresh pineapple, and PPC peppers/cucumber.

PM snack– Whole wheat bagel with cream cheese and pears/oranges.

Wee Sprouts– PPC peppers/cucumber.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 10/16

Good Afternoon!

**We are going to be doing our yearly Halloween parade! It will start at 4:00 on Wednesday, October 31st. Depending on the weather, we will either take a walk around the block or a short walk around Wee Friends/out in the back yard. If you have any questions, please ask!

K-PREK1 read a story that we had never read before which opened the door for a good ol’ prediction session! Throughout the story, we stopped at four different places to talk about what might happen next. We used the text that we had read so far to help give us clues! Children shared their predictions aloud and stated why they felt that way. We really enjoyed the humorous nature of the story!

K.RL.2.4: Make predictions about what will happen in a story.

PREK2 read ‘Bear Feels Scared’ which lead into their message board. We discussed the things that made the bear feel scared and then towards the end, what made the bear feel safe. Children took turns coming to the board to write their name by their answer.

An art activity was made available at the table. Each child who chose to do the activity picked one piece of paper that had a surprise drawing on it. After painting the paper with water colors, the picture was revealed!

A group of our older peers used this morning to travel! Since it wasn’t a good farm morning, they decided to build a vehicle that took them all the way to Canada. They used different maps to help them navigate their way. Once they were there, they decided to come back home–Only to make a pitstop in Florida first.

Rainy mornings are the perfect building mornings! Friends teamed up to build together using trio blocks and magnatiles which are far and away our favorites. Our cooperation skills are always on display as we work through problems that may arise .

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast/cinnamon raisin bagel with butter and PPC pears.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with butter and shredded chicken, PPC banana, and PPC cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with fresh pears.

Wee Sprout– PPC cherry tomatoes.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 10/15