Hello! This morning some friends decided to make their own kites. Complete with detailed designs made with markers and foam pieces plus hand-made tails, these kites and their kite-makers were begging to fly.

So… let’s go outside and see if the kites fly!

But, take a break when your kites get tangled.

Then try again!

The sandbox was THE place to be today at Wee Friends. At one point in time, almost every single friend was in the sandbox! The sand provides a wonderful medium for open-ended sensory play. Friends utilize the sand in many different ways: building sand castles, making food, digging holes, covering themselves in sand (ever heard of a “sand angel”?!), burying objects and so much more.

Kindergarten: Today the kindergarteners continued their work on FAB K.4.1: Identify and describe geometric objects. Working together, Elliott and Elizabeth created a variety of geometric shapes, noticing how many sides each shape had and discussing whether the sides were all equal or different (e.g. square vs. rectangle).

Wee Sprouts: Cucumbers. Breakfast: Whole Grain Cheerios and bananas. Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with black beans, fresh tomatoes/cucumbers and watermelon. Snack: Peanut butter and wheat crackers.

Have a wonderful afternoon. –Jessica

Today while the older friends were at the farm, our other friends stayed busy! Lots of puzzles and building with blocks and magnatiles.

Today in large group we worked on one of our Math FABs for the week: K.4.1 Identify and describe geometric objects: circle, triangle, square, rectangle, diamond, trapezoid, hexagon, octagon, parallelogram, sphere and cube.

After introducing some of the 3D shapes through a poem, we played a game matching everyday objects (ice cream cone, basketball, dice, etc.) to their shape name (cone, sphere, cube, etc.). Afterwards we read The Shape Song Swingalong with the accompanying song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umu58RxNL7I)

Many friends continued this exploration of shapes into their journal work today. For instance, Clara chose to draw a list of the shapes we heard in our read-aloud: square, circle, line, triangle, rectangle. This is a clear example of natural engagement with the curriculum. In Wee World, we don’t force any children to complete work such as drawing shapes on a worksheet. So when friends choose to draw shapes on their own, we can tell they are really engaged with learning!

Kindergarten: This shape work continued with our kindergartners as they were asked to identify a greater number of shapes. After this activity, Elliott and Elizabeth naturally wanted to categorize their shapes! They divided the objects into piles of spheres, cubes, and so on.

Have a great day! –Jessica

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Hot wheat cereal, healthy applesauce oat muffins, fresh pears and oranges. Lunch: Whole wheat tortilla with cheddar cheese, carrots and apples. Snack: Homemade popcorn with butter and fresh apple slices.

Today was our first trip to Prairie Winds Farm of the late summer/early fall. To learn more about this working educational farm check out their website: http://www.prairiewindsnaturefarm.com/. This week the older friends (4 ,5, and 6 year olds) went.

It was very exciting to be back on the farm with friends!

                            

There was so much to do and see at Prairie Winds Farm. We picked some ripe and very juicy raspberries:

We visited with the horses and some very friendly goats:

Miss Tami even wrangled up a baby goat for us to hold and pet!

 

We also experimented: did the goats like eating hay or corn better?

 

We watched chickens lay eggs and pet the farm cat:

 

We even got some time in on the rope swing!

 

Overall, it was a busy and fun-filled day at the farm. We can’t wait to go back! –Jessica

Hope everyone had a terrific holiday weekend!

**Weather permitting tomorrow, Group A will be headed to the farm tomorrow (Wednesday)!

While the swim group had their first swim session this morning (which went fantastic!), friends who stayed behind spent their morning building with blocks along with moving their bodies throughout the gross motor environment.

Children gathered around the island to bake healthy muffins for our afternoon snack. Every friend got a turn to help measure either a wet or dry ingredient.

Kindergarten: One of this week’s FABs is K.RF.3.1: Identify and produce rhyming words. The kindergarteners worked on this skill using a series of rhyming clip cards.

^The excitement of recognizing star rhymes with car!

Because we did this activity outside, many other friends were interested in joining as well. Even though our younger friends needed more teacher assistance, this provided a great opportunity to simply introduce the idea of rhyming words.

Hearing rhyming words is an important foundational skill for hearing the sounds within words, creating rhymes and reading. Rhyming teaches children how language works! 

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Kix and oranges. Lunch: Whole wheat bread with hummus, fresh green beans and apples. Snack: Homemade whole wheat fruit muffins and mozzarella cheese.

Please note: Wee Friends is closed on Monday for Labor Day. Enjoy your holiday weekend!

Rosemary and Ruby hung out together in the cube and shared a book.

Truman loved his time on the baby jungle gym.

Emma discovered new toys to enjoy!

Breakfast was Kix cereal and pears. Lunch consisted of whole wheat bread with pea butter, bananas, and red peppers. Afternoon snack was mozzarella string cheese and graham crackers.

Have a great night!

Amanda

Reminders:

*Wee Friends is closed Monday, September 7th for Labor Day.

*Please turn in field trip permission slips as soon as possible. Thank you!

Today there were fewer friends here than normal due to sickness (feel better soon, friends) and vacations. That didn’t stop us from lots of play!

We jumped off blocks:

Completed puzzles:

Read books and painted workbench creations:

Our old friend Emma also came for a visit! She was able to work at the workbench with the real tools because, in Emma’s words, “I’m four now!”

Hope you have a wonderful Labor Day weekend and we will see you again on Tuesday! –Jessica

Wee Sprouts: Bell peppers. Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with peanut butter and bananas. Lunch: Whole wheat bread and tortillas with peanut butter and fresh green beans and pears. Snack: Mozzarella string cheese and grapes.

Hello, everyone!

Here are some of our favorite photos from today!

Breakfast was Whole Grain Cheerios and bananas. Lunch consisted of whole grain brown rice with cheese, pears, and cucumbers. PM snack was whole wheat toast with sweet pea butter.

Have a great evening!

-Amanda

This morning we had a request for bubbles. We brought out our big container of bubble mix from the basement, but decided to make our own bubble wands out of pipe cleaners. Friends experimented with many different shapes from circles and hearts to stars.

Here are our homemade bubble wands!

We had a blast blowing bubbles:

Kindergarten: This afternoon Elizabeth continued work on her alphabet book. After writing both the upper and lowercase letter, she drew a picture and wrote a word to represent the letter. Writing words is SO exciting!

Wee Sprouts: Cucumbers and carrots. Breakfast: Cornflakes and bananas. Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with cheese, carrots/peppers and plums/grapes. Snack: Peanuts and whole wheat triscuits.

 

Have a joy-filled afternoon! –Jessica

Ruby is always happy to play in the sandbox!

Friends were cooking in housekeeping. They were trying lots of different food and offered some to their teachers, too!

Rosemary played with the puff balls this afternoon. She stuffed them down the tube to push other ones out, and placed them on the tray in individual cups.

Breakfast was hot wheat cereal and blueberries. Lunch consisted of farm fresh, whole wheat bread, watermelon, and cauliflower. Afternoon snack was wheat crackers and cheddar cheese.

Have a good night!

Amanda

 

Announcements

*Wee Friends will be closed on Monday, September 7th in observance of Labor Day.

*Swim and farm permission slips were attached to cubbies this afternoon. Please turn them in as soon as possible! We need swimming slips by next Tuesday and farm slips by next Wednesday.

*Swimming lessons at the Y start Tuesday, September 8th. If your child is participating, please make sure they have a bathing suit here at WF. Older children may bring in goggles if they would like.

*Farm trips are beginning soon! Group A [Elliott, Elizabeth, Daniel, Emerson, Clara, Jackson, Addison and Eren] is tentatively scheduled for a farm trip on Wednesday, September 9th.

Once again, we must have permission slips back BEFORE swimming lessons and farm trips begin. Thank you!

This morning began with a counting game (FAB K.NS.4 Perform one-to-one correspondence tasks) involving dice and unifix cubes. Later this morphed into attempting to build a tower that touches the ceiling.

Holding a tower requires teamwork and a lot of concentration!

 

After the tower collapsed, friends decided to build on the floor instead.

Many friends gathered to make the “longest stick in the world!” Friends got as far as the island before they ran out of unifix cubes.

Outside, Emerson led friends in a game of “Simon Says”  while other friends explored natural materials via opening up fallen flower buds and gluing leaves:

Today in large group it was Poetry Day. One of the poems we read was “About Face” by Douglas Florian, which included a hilarious drawing of a face all out of order, with toes instead of ears! This was the inspiration for many of our journals today.

Kindergarten: Today the kindergarteners continued working on FAB K.RF.3.2 Orally segment words into syllables. Each friend received a pack of words with pictures and worked independently to figure out how many syllables were in each word, placing a marker on the correct number.

Below, Elliott demonstrates the syllable-counting method he prefers: putting his hands under his chin and counting how many times his chin moves when saying the word.

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Whole grain oatmeal with bananas and plums. Lunch: Farm fresh scrambled eggs with whole wheat bread, fresh cauliflower and watermelon. Snack: Refried beans with blue corn chips.

“Simon says” have a great day! –Jessica