Good Afternoon!

**Here’s the first reminder about Christmas break: Wee Friends will be closed Monday, December 25th through Friday, January 5th. We’ll reopen Monday, January 8th!

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This week, we’re talking about the importance of being a responsible member of a group. The term responsibility at this age is often hard to grasp; it’s very self-driven (I do ____).

In large group, we read two stories that talked about forming relationships in school as well as good examples of behavior and not so good examples. Children were quick to point out the examples that were good and the bad (“That’s not being a good friend..”).

As a group, we made a list of how we can be a responsible member in class as well as in our family. We were quick to give examples and wanting our name next to our answer, taking responsibility for our own thoughts!

There is no one specific/right way to parent but one thing that I’m sure we can all agree on is the importance of having children take responsibility for themselves. This article goes into the importance of raising responsible children and the ways that we can get there together!

https://centerforparentingeducation.org/library-of-articles/responsibility-and-chores/developing-responsibility-in-your-children/

Our morning consisted of getting back into our routine! Long weekends are nice but we were so anxious to get back into the swing of things. Maddie and Lulu discussed art projects that they were starting while Ruby and David (and several other peers) explored the sensory table with moon sand!

We started transitioning our fall decorations into the winter decorations. One of the things that we were most anxious for was the holiday mailbox! Children talked about what a mailman does before making the decision that each friend would get a chance to be the mailman.

We headed toward the sunshine this morning! Explorations occurred as children realized that all of the leaves were missing from the trees and brushes.

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with cream cheese and fresh apples.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with shredded chicken and butter, PPC oranges, and fresh carrots/cauliflower.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with graham crackers.

Wee Sprouts– PPC cauliflower.

Have a lovely evening.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/27

Good Afternoon!  Enjoy some of the pictures from our day!

Breakfast:  Kix cereal and clementines.

Lunch:  Grilled cheese sandwiches, bananas and peas.

Afternoon Snack:  Hummus on whole grain wheat crackers.

Wee Sprouts:  Peas.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving and a great weekend!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZ4w78LYg52flrIE3g

Happy Wednesday!

Before most holiday weekends, we have our classic pajama day! An option to paint nails is always made. Our older children set up the runway and when we were ready…

The show started!

Miss Kim baked fresh bread with the kids this morning. Children used different measuring tools to complete the recipe.

Before lunch, Miss Melinda taught friends the chicken dance! She brought in a turkey from her home that sings and dances to the ‘chicken dance’.

Breakfast– Chex and PPC apples.

Lunch– Scrambled eggs with shredded cheese, whole wheat flatbread, PPC pears/banana, and PPC cucumber.

PM snack– Homemade bread with string cheese.

Wee Sprout– Fresh carrots.

Have a fantastic holiday weekend.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/22

Just a reminder tomorrow is PAJAMA DAY!

Good Afternoon!

We began our morning by playing with the balls in habitrail. Our oldest friend today, Mack passed out a ball to all of our younger friends. We then enjoyed sliding down and climbing up the slide.

Mack built a wall with the plastic blocks. He then played peek-a boo with Daniel.

Mack requested our sensory table with corn and beans. We all enjoyed scooping and filling up our containers with our variety of scoops.

Our friend, Mack built a wooden train with our train blocks, while our friend Aggie enjoyed playing with our Thomas train.

Breakfast:  Whole grain Cheerios and PPC clementines.

Lunch:  Hummus on whole grain wheat tortillas, peas and PPC banana.

Afternoon Snack:  Graham crackers and mozzarella string cheese stick.

Wee Sprouts:  Peas.

Have a great night!

Rebekah 

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZ0NoAsEMOKs8_EBXQ

Good Afternoon!

A few kindergarteners met in the habitrail area this morning with a clip board, paper, and pencil. We got out the trio blocks as we started looking at the makeup of addition and subtraction equations. Children used the trio blocks to represent the numbers in the equation. For example, Lulu placed five trio blocks on one side and four trio blocks on the other side before adding them together. We talked about the difference between the addition sign and subtraction sign. Together, we came up with the answer which then lead into children drawing what they saw. After drawing the blocks, they put the answer underneath.

K.CA.1-2: Solve real-world problems, objects, or drawings that involve addition and subtraction within 10. Demonstrate the equation (e.g., 5=3+2 and 5=4+1).

Lulu took this one step further. Once she started adding numbers together, she kept the trio blocks connected. She added 5 plus 5 and got 10 and just kept on going and adding trio blocks to her creation. Once she got to 35, she added four more trio blocks coming to 39! FINALLY, she had a total of 104 trio blocks that she had counted and kept track of by writing the new answer down on her paper.

Franklin took single trio blocks and built a tower. Once it got taller than his head, Maxwell noticed he needed help so he came over and helped him continue to add blocks.

We had a group meeting this morning in the reading area. Our friends have been extremely interested in stories so we wanted to talk about how to properly put our books away so that we don’t hurt them! Miss Melinda talked about the make up of the book; front, back, and spine. Maddie demonstrated for Miss Melinda; all of us have a spine and that’s the part of the book that should be showing when we put them away.

After, children were more aware of how they were putting their book away.

Our younger preschoolers participated in a sorting activity this morning at the circle table. Children sorted mostly by color and put the counter in the correctly colored cup.

Breakfast– Whole grain cheerios and PPC cantaloupe.

Lunch– Hummus on whole wheat tortillas, PPC clementines/apple, and PPC cherry tomatoes.

PM snack– String cheese and wheat thins.

Wee Sprout– PPC snap peas.

Have a great night!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/21

Just a friendly reminder, we will we closed Thursday and Friday this week for our Thanksgiving break.

On Wednesday of this week we will be having a PAJAMA DAY!

Good Afternoon!

This morning we drew in our journals with markers.

We were busy looking at books or having a teacher read them to us.

Since it was Monday we all went up on the habitrail when we heard the trash truck. He even honks his horn for us every week.

For our sensory activity we were using our hands, measuring cups and spoons to fill up our containers with the corn and beans.

Our older friend, Daniel is enjoying some quality time interacting with his friend Zoe.

Breakfast:  Toasted whole wheat bread with sunflower butter and apples.

Lunch:  Whole wheat pasta with marinara and mozzarella cheese, apples, and corn.

Afternoon Snack:  Whole milk yogurt and PPC clementines.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a great evening!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZwJBWAjFwRlu4RzFw

Good Afternoon!

**We have several ‘beginning of winter’ illnesses going around. The general colds and coughs along with a few low grade temperatures. We did send home a child today with a fever. Just as a reminder, here is the link to our illness policy: https://www.weefriendskids.com/handbook-policies/

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Lulu interacted with the abacus this morning as she found several ways to make ten. Using the blue counters, she put one counter on one side and then nine counters on the opposite side. She used her one to one correspondence skills to count how many counters she had in all.

K.CA.1-2: Solve real-world problems, objects, or drawings that involve addition and subtraction within 10. Demonstrate the equation (e.g., 5=3+2 and 5=4+1)

When our pre-k/k children journal after group time, it’s the perfect time to use authentic assessment while children are kid spelling. Consonants are easier to hear (generally) and vowels usually come a little later. After children are done journaling, they have time to write about what they drew. Usually, children hear a vowel sound but aren’t quite sure what sound or letter they’re hearing. Children build an understanding of what vowels are and the different sounds that they can make.

K.RF.4.3: Recognize the long and short sounds for the five major vowels.

Children gathered in the reading area to read a few new stories this morning. The ‘Ladybug Girl’ series is becoming one of our favorites so a few new ‘Ladybug Girl’ books were added to our ever growing book collection.

Breakfast– Whole wheat toast with peanut butter and fresh apples.

Lunch– Whole wheat pasta with marinara sauce with shredded cheese, PPC clementines, and PPC broccoli/carrots.

PM snack– Whole milk yogurt with PPC cantaloupe.

Wee Sprout– PPC broccoli/carrots.

Have a lovely night.

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/20

Good Afternoon!

Today we…

played in the corn sensory table…

built with magnatiles and interstar connectors…

swung and spun on the trapeze bar…

and played with the babies and their bottles.

Breakfast:  Kashi blueberry clusters cereal and apples.

Lunch:  Egg Salad on whole grain wheat bread, apples/clementine oranges and mixed vegetables.

Afternoon Snack:  Pretzels and mozzarella string cheese.

Wee Sprouts: Mixed vegetables.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Rebekah

Link to pictures: https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZs5_7DX4SQu9Br5pA

Happy Friday!

**Just a reminder that we have a three day week next week as we are closed on Thursday and Friday (November 23 and 24) in observance of Thanksgiving. Thanks!

A quick look into our Friday:

Breakfast– Rice cakes with peanut butter and PPC kiwi.

Lunch– Homemade egg salad on whole wheat bread, clementines/apples, and PPC peppers.

PM snack– String cheese and pretzels.

Wee Sprout– PPC peppers/green beans.

Have a lovely weekend!

-Mindy

Link to pictures: WF 11/17

Good Afternoon!

This morning we played with some sensory bags that Miss Marty made. We had 4 different bags to explore. We had a bag with shaving cream, a bag with cotton balls and little purple pom poms, a bag with glitter and water and a bag with green liquid watercolor and short pieces of plastic straws.

A friend requested the pegs and peg boards this morning.  We worked on filling up and stacking our pegs on our boards.

We also built with our Magnatiles and added our snowballs into our buildings. Sophia was able to balance a snowball on top of her building that was at an angle.

Breakfast: Kix cereal and apples.

Lunch:  Whole grain brown rice with shredded beef, banana and corn.

Afternoon Snack: Brown rice cakes with sunflower butter.

Wee Sprouts: Corn.

Have a great night!

Rebekah

Link to pictures:  https://1drv.ms/f/s!AtTCDmdhjIuliZpOlVlnZSrwlGP_cw