Welcome back Jennifer and the Blue Bus! Here are those groups and times again!

9:00 – Finn, Elizabeth, Elliott, Lea and Ellie 9:30-Marina, Leo, Clara, Daniel, Sloane, Owen

Mel created music with the kids. They started by reading an Eric Carle book about a fox. They learned a days of the week song and then moved on to rhythm work, counting 1-2-3-4 as Mel played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

We invited friends to look at themselves in the mirror and study the color of their eyes.

They matched their eye color with a piece of the same colored paper.

Zoe joined us today! Welcome Zoe to our classroom!

Their was huge excitement when we went outside! Friends got to play beneath the new sandbox tarp that was hung by Tami over the weekend.

Wee Sprouts: Elliott’s garden tomatoes. Breakfast: Wheat toast and pear slices. Lunch: Whole wheat pasta full of Cassie’s tomatoes, WF’s zucchini and Owen’s garden kale. With it, we served peas and peaches. Thanks you, everyone, for sharing your bounty! Snack: Pear slices and Monterrey Jack cheese slices.

Have a great day!

Happy Friday!

It was gross motor Friday. Emma started taking the blocks and jumping as high as she could off of them. Soon, Keerthi and Eve joined her. Emma liked the loud boom that the floor made once she landed on it .

The second part of our gross motor morning consisted of friends playing catch with one another. Eve threw the bouncy balls to Keerthi and Emma who were sitting in the cubbies. Once they were done throwing them, they rolled them. We worked on our hand eye coordination when we were trying to catch the balls.

When we headed outside, we saw that the Wee Teachers and friends were in the middle of picking plums off of the plum tree in the backyard. Our Wee Wee’s joined in to help and observe what was going on.

A few of our friends tried the plums. We made sure to explain that we don’t eat the pits. When Eve found her pit, she dug it out and handed it to a teacher! She loved them! When Lu Lu tasted a bite, she said “mmm”.

Mr. Tate joined us outside for a while. He sure was a hit! Sloane made sure to let everyone know that her baby brother Tate was outside! We sure do have some proud older siblings .

For breakfast, children had cheesy eggs and apples. Lunch was turkey and melted cheese on whole wheat tortillas, plums/oranges, and peas. PM snack consisted of goldfish and craisins.

Our third infant friend will join us on Monday. Stay tuned to meet her! Tate and Maya are soo excited!

Have a terrific weekend. See ya Monday!

REMINDER: The Blue Bus will begin bright and early Monday morning. Here are the groups and times:

9am-Finn, Elizabeth, Elliott, Sophia, Lea and Ellie

9:30-Marina, Leo, Clara, Daniel, Sloane and Owen

Before we jump into the weekend, we want to say goodbye to Caleb! Caleb will return to ECDC soon, after spending his summer at Wee Friends. We will miss you, Caleb! Thanks for being a great friend to us!

We also want to wish Sophie a Happy Birthday! Tomorrow Sophie is celebrating her Big 4!

As we come to the end of our harvest, we have to say another huge thank you  to our Garden Committee: Jen Tank, Lindsay Chadderton and Amy Crosson. I can’t tell you how much we have all loved watching the earth transform your seeds into food we can pick and eat, flowers we can study and smell and dirt we can dig!

Wee Sprouts: Carrots and WF plums. Breakfast: Applesauce Oatmeal. Lunch: Melted ham and cheddar on whole wheat tortillas, WF plums and peas. Snack: orange slices and pretzels. Food for Thought: http://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/child-development/10-things-every-parent-should-know-about-play

Have a great weekend.

Happy Thursday!

These pictures throughout the blog are from today and yesterday.

**We’re very short on grocery bags for dirty diapers. If you have any at home that you could spare, we’d greatly appreciate it!

Our baby friends, Tate and Maya, are getting into the swing of things. Naps, eating, and overall ins and outs of the day are becoming routine. We’re getting used to them and they’re getting used to us .

Going from home life to a multi age child care setting is sure a lot but with the help of our other friends, the transition is going extremely well!

After a nice rain this morning, friends went outside to play. Emma joined her friend Leo in the sandbox where they worked on building sand castles together. Eve hung out with her older brother Caleb!

Emma has this game she plays. She’ll run around growling at her friends. The Wee friends think it’s so funny! It ended up being most of the girls chasing the older boys. Friends sure did get their running in today! It sounded like the Wee Friend jungle in the backyard!

Eve stood on the side telling friends, “No screams! Be careful!” She sure was the monitor of the game!

It sure did rain/hail this afternoon. A few friends were up at this time and they were able to see it. We even opened the door so they could see and hear first hand what was going on outside.

For breakfast, children had corn flakes and banana. Lunch consisted of homemade chicken and noodles, fresh garden tomatoes, and banana. PM snack was string cheese and banana.

Have a great evening.

“This is the rock struck by the truck and this is the muck where the truck becomes stuck.”

It all began because of the sidewalk. The uneven sidewalk. There’s this little spot on our sidewalk that has a slight upward rake. It’s always been challenging for friends to navigate on bikes. Today, as Finn pulled two friends in his truck, he stopped at The Tricky Sidewalk Spot and said “My truck is stuck in the muck!” We ran inside to get the ever popular Duck in the Truck by Jez Alborough. We figured out how we could use our own environment to act out the story. And we were off!

Another group of girls decided the sandbox was muck!

We came inside and a group of friends created their own muck. We measured cornstarch and water, mucked it up, and added a variety of veggies, paper, salad dressing and paint to see if we could turn it into brown muck, just like in the book. We discussed the texture of the muck, the smell and of course…the changing color.

Lisa pulled out the mystery box and friends used their fingers as eyes to determine what object they were feeling.

Happy Day!

Breakfast: Corn Flakes and bananas. Lunch: Chicken and noodles, corn and carrots. Snack: Cantaloupe and yogurt.

Good Afternoon!

Miss Marty and Emma worked on sequencing this morning. Emma started banging on the floor so Miss Marty followed her lead. If Miss Marty pounded twice, Emma would pound twice. As they pounded on the floor, they counted 1, 2, 3. Friends soon joined the fun .

For breakfast, children had cheesy eggs and pears. Lunch consisted of turkey, tortilla bread, cantaloupe, and corn. PM snack was string cheese and cucumbers.

Have a great evening.

-Mindy

We are turning and facing the exciting changes in our Wee classroom. We spent today nurturing new friendships and enjoying the comfort of old ones, re-visiting/teaching classroom procedures, exploring new interests and counting and matching jewels. In the coming weeks, we will be back to the Blue Bus, The Y and our Farm. After Labor Day, we will begin implementing FABs or the Framework for Academic Balance: developmentally appropriate literacy and math standards for all of Wee Friends. But for now, it’s time to get to know one another!

Onward.

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Corn Flakes and bananas. Lunch: Turkey and tortillas with cantaloupe and tomatoes. Snack: Orange slices and string cheese.

Have a great day.

First of all, Finn, the oldest Wee Friend, is five today! Happy Big 5, Finn! We love you!

“Who are you?” asked Aislinn to her new friend Owen. So we all jumped into the question “Who are you?”. First we reminded each other of our names. Then we measured how many blocks tall we are.

Outside, friends discovered how many babies tall they are.

We switched gears and planted the strawberries that Max brought in! Thank you, Max!

Finn passed out brand new pirate bandanas to all his friends. Then he assembled his crew.

Back inside, Lisa read Whoever You Are by Mem Fox. She invited friends to make a family tree that included family names.

Elliott sat on a teacher’s lap and read, out loud, Curious George and the Bunny. He shared which words he liked to read out loud, and then practiced identifying and tracing those letters. Later, he read the book to his classmates.

Many friends enjoyed linking the chains. And ummm…..tying up the Grinch and throwing him across the room.

Outside again, we hopped, skipped, galloped, tip-toed and RAN around our mini track.

And we loved our babies.

So “Who are you?” Today we found out:

Cassie writes a perfect M-O-M.

Max can write the name of every member of his family.

Sloaners has a perfect pirouette AND is beautifully (and daily) protective of her dear Tate, who is now at WeeWee.

Leo HATES wearing shoes outside and LOVES to run fast.

Elliott’s three favorite words from his book are bunny, curious and George.

Clara has beautiful (and totally dry!) new Hello Kitty underwear.

Finn knows that the number 5 cupcake is the biggest of all the cupcakes. And it is for the birthday boy.

Owen likes movies and went to the movie store last night. He is 5 1/2 blocks tall.

Aislinn can write her letter A, loves pizza and bananas, but not corn. Definitely not corn.

Caleb has a brother named Aiden and a sister named Eve. We know because he wrote their names on his family tree today!

Who are we? We are Wee Friends! We grow friendships all day long!

Have a great day!

Wee Sprouts: Carrots. Breakfast: Chex and bananas. Lunch: Pizza, corn and bananas. Snack: Chocolate birthday cupcakes and peanuts.

PS: Can you please bring in ONE baby picture of your Wee Friend for our Family Tree? Thank you!

Happy Monday!

Today, we welcomed our newest friend Tate! Tate is a three month old baby who has an older sister, Sloane, next door at Wee Friends! We all loved getting to know him today . He sure got lots of kisses on his first day! Welcome Sampson family (again).

We settled into our routine today. Maya and Tate got familiar with one another since they are so close in age! They enjoyed looking each other over.

As we headed outside, friends ran throughout the yard. We met our Wee Friends out there and loved interacting with them .

For breakfast, children had chex and banana. Lunch consisted of whole wheat penne pasta with black beans and fresh garden tomatoes, cantaloupe, and corn. PM snack was whole wheat crackers and cheddar cheese slices.

Have a great night.

-Mindy

Another goodbye! Today Arleigh says goodbye to Wee Friends after more than four years. She will be a kindergartener at Kennedy Primary Academy starting Wednesday! We celebrated the Wonderful Arleigh today, first by jamming out to two of her favorite songs “Party in the USA” and “Call Me Maybe”. Next we re-enacted her favorite: Sleeping Beauty and the Evil Maleficent. Music and art have always been the places where Arleigh has found her voice. Thank you Jennae, Steve and Lyrica for the many years and the many ways you have supported Wee Friends.  Arleigh, we will remember you as a super creative girl who always loves a good joke and a good song! We love you!

We had two other reasons to celebrate today and their names are Aislinn and Clara Rose. Our two new Wee Friends joined us today in the “big house” and both are having terrific transitions.

And hold the boat! Annie came by this am to play and visit before she starts kindergarten at St. Joe’s! Whew! What a morning. What a community.

We feel lucky.

Wee Sprouts: WF Garden carrots. Breakfast: Peanut butter toast and fresh fruit. Lunch: Whole wheat penne pasta with black beans and WF garden tomatoes, salad with Ranch and cantaloupe. Snack: Pretzels and peaches.

Have a great day.