WWF Rolling in the Doh!

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Our day began with our Donut Shop Game, and a story.

Elizabeth wanted our fire truck CD, so we did some songs and dancing to it. “BINGO” was a big hit as well!

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Miss Paulina brought out the Pla-Doh. The children rolled and patted it, adorned it with sea shells, made cookie letter prints, and used our various size and textured hammers. A long snake was even made out of our Pla-Doh. The children observed it going from very long to short.

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Though slightly wet out, there was still some time to play with our balls on our bridge. We are trying to savor the last few days of our “fall like” weather.

The children spent some time this morning trying out our new hammock swing! Marta, Elizabeth, Sloane and Olivia put their baby dolls in as well. What fun!

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It was a great morning to sit back and do some puzzles. Elizabeth enjoyed the shapes, numbers and transportation puzzles. Olivia enjoyed working with Chloe on another. Sloane worked diligently on her number puzzle, and Marta and Jada later joined in. Others did some painting.

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How high and tall can you go? Some of our friends worked on soaring to new heights with our building blocks.

For breakfast this morning, we had toast and bananas. Our lunch consisted of beef and noodles, some delicious oven potatoes and fresh fruit salad.

Enjoy the day!

WF Farm, 10/12/11

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Today at the farm, our focus was to continue to get the younger children more comfortable with the animals, smells, noises, and slippery spots on the ground (sometimes it’s just mud, but sometimes it’s pooh!).  So we spent our morning seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting things.

Shortly after we arrived, I caught a chicken.  Most of our younger group is still rather intimidated by the chickens, so this was an opportunity to touch, smell, and hear the chickens up close.  (No, we didn’t taste them:)  As we touched the chickens, we compared how different the combs and waddle felt to the softness their feathers.

We also fed the goats.  Touching the grain is sensory experience that all of the children enjoy.  They run the grain through their fingers, sometimes gently and sometimes squeezing it tightly to change how it feels.

We compared  how the goats tongue felt to the cows tongue as they ate grain from our hands.  (The goat’s tongue is very soft, while the cow’s tongue is hard and also rough textured like a cat.)

Sunscreen, the fabulous farm kitten, blessed us with some sweet loving moments.  The children listened to her purr and felt the softness of her furr and the prickle of her whiskers.  Thankfully, nobody felt the sharpness of her claws!

 Next, Charlotte brought out a variety of fresh farm fruits for us to sample: grapes, persimmons, and paw paws.  

 

 Several friends enjoyed the sensory experience of walking, stomping, and yes, even jumping in the mud.  Their boots stuck to the mud and it squished and it squelched as they squealed. 

 The geese were in rare form today and at different points they were being very loud.  The children watched them closely and listened to them call angrily to each other.  (Well, at least it sounded angry. They may have just been making lunch plans.)

 While in the woods, we listened to the leaves crunch as we walked.  The children also gathered nuts from the ground.  They noticed that the opened shells of the walnuts had a strong smell.

In the prairie, we listened to the wind and played with the ripe, fuzzy milkweed seeds.  We threw the fuzzy seeds the air and watched them blow away.  It was another great day to be at the farm!

Back at WF, Melinda had a delightful, peaceful morning with the standby group.  They spent a relaxed morning reading books, painting at the easel, playing games with the parachute, and helping Melinda with lunch and cots. 

WWF Farm RESCHEDULED…again!

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The forecast does not look promising for tomorrow to be our rain date for the WWF farm trip.  Additionally, with the likely chance that it will be raining, cancelling now allows Charlotte to be committed somewhere else she needs to be.

Soooo….here’s the plan:  The older WWF over 2 years old children (Marta, Elizabeth and Eleanor) will join my regularly scheduled WF trip in one week: Wednesday, October 19th.  If any parents would like to join us with their under 2 child, please just let me know!  And if it rains again, we’ll plan on the following Wednesday! We will persevere!

Thanks!

Tami

WWF, Up, Up and Away We Go! 10-12-11

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Our morning began with some marker and paint mural drawings. The children worked diligently on their own masterpieces, some discussing their drawings as they went along.

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Fall scented homemade Pla-Doh of cinnamon filled the kitchen table. The children enjoyed doing “Pat-A-Cake, Pat-A-Cake a Bakers Man” with it. We also brought out our big buttons to add to their creations. We worked with some of the children on counting and matching in the midst of their creations. Ozzie enjoyed matching his buttons on the table. Olivia and Sloane enjoyed the texture of theirs, and flattening it out on the table. Eleanor Jada and Marta worked on theirs individually, taking much pride in their creations. We also listened to several of our fall book selections.

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Our outside time this morning was spent with our new parachute. What fun this was! This taught the children the concept of high and low, slower and faster, and mastering to keep the ball we placed in the center on the parachute! We had some disappointed faces when we were done, so it will most likely be part of our afternoon activities!

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For breakfast this morning, we had scrambled eggs with cheese and bananas. Our mid-morning, post parachute snack was fresh sliced cucumbers. Rice with chicken, more cucumbers, and oranges filled the children’s bellies this afternoon. As you can see below, it was a big hit!

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Please be on stand-by for a farm update for our farm trip from Tami either tonight, or tomorrow. Once again, the weather forecast is not in our favor.

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Enjoy the scenery of this beautiful day!

WF Daily Explorations Tuesday 10/11

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Before the swimmers left, Melinda took an opportunity to remind Wee Friends where the toys in housekeeping go. Putting toys back in their designated spot is a skill we work on everyday.

 

 

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Yesterday we began a conversation about shells. We specifically discussed snails, turtles, eggs and nuts. We talked about a shell’s purpose for the living creature inside. We explored an egg, walnut and seashell and then recreated these objects with felt.

 

When the swimmers departed, all corners of the classroom were in full gear!

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Ada and Stephen have been enjoying spending alot of time together these last several days.

 

 

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Nate and Alexandra prepared pies and muffins for……

 

 

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BFF’s Umi and Alma!

 

 

 

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Melinda created a tent over housekeeping and everyone played underneath.

 

 

For lunch we served chicken salad with apples, fruit salad and baked butternut squash.

Have a great day!

WWF, Fun and falling leaves! 10-11-11

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What better way to start the day than with our “Hello Song.” Miss Paulina did some beautiful music for us. Some of the children also played our drums the rhythm of the music, while others did some dancing.

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Almost all of our new friends have the words and motions “down pat” to our Donut Shop Game, and Sloane is usually the first one in the circle starting us out with the motions. Eleanor stepped right up today, and was an eager participant. We then read a new book about fall.

Some of us played in our tub of leaves, while others spent time making some beautiful glue and glitter collages accompanied by some colorful fall leaves we brought in from outside.

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Our new silky square of fabric has come in handy for a sensory activity for our babies, and the older children seem to use it for us to make forts and houses. Our new baby dolls have also been getting much use, as our little girls have been taking wonderful care of them. Marta, Elizabeth, Eleanor, Elizabeth and Sloane have been working hard on feeding them, swinging them, and clothing them.

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It was a beautiful morning outside. Marta especially, has become a skilled peddler on our tricycles. Elizabeth is getting close, and our grocery carts and Blue Dogs seem to still be popular with the children.

For breakfast this morning, toast and fresh fruit was served. For lunch the children had delicious chicken salad with apples, whole wheat bread, shredded carrots, and bananas.

We were glad to welcome Olivia back today after she spent a few days teaching her little brother the “ropes!” We look forward to him being a part of our WWF family in January.

May your day be filled with the beauty and splendid color of the day!

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Happy Fall!

New for WWF! Electronic Portfolio Implementation

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As a classroom, we are always trying to find the balance between communicating valuable information and the time it takes to do the communicating.  We added the daily blog in early spring, which we feel gives parents a clear picture of our daily classroom activities.  We have had such wonderful feedback about the blog, so this is something we will continue.

We WILL continue to have daily sheets in the younger classroom, but the focus of your daily sheet will be to simply communicate pertinent information like nap times, diaper changes (for children under 15 mo or so)  & potty concerns/notes for the older ones, and meal comments.  Please continue to look to the blog for the daily menu as it is too time consuming to write the menu on individual sheets. 

The process of completing daily sheets for every child has always been a labor intensive effort, especially when we are trying to add in notes about development and classroom activities.    Now that we have the blog to communicate classroom activities, we will no longer use the daily sheets for that purpose. 

However, the exciting news is that we have started Electronic Portfolios (EP) for every child in the younger classroom.  Our goal is one electronic entry (photo of child/child’s artwork/child’s work, plus an anecdote/or developmental milestone/or work description) for each child every week.  We are starting with the goal of emailing this entry to parents once a week.  

Your electronic portfolio will be emailed in a pdf format.  Please remember that these EP’s are often done on a laptop with efficiency in mind.  So please view these weekly emails as your child’s “rough draft” and before you recieve your final pdf, we will go through and clean up any typos. 

We have been  successfully doing the EP’s in the older classroom since early summer.  Late this summer we started work on the younger classroom, so your first email may contain a few entries from as early as July or August.  The WWF teachers feel like they have the process mastered and found the time to make this happen in a predictable way so we are officially cutting the ribbon and sending them out:)

Enjoy! 

Tami

WF Daily Explorations Monday 10/10

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Gymnastics Monday!

Today Wee Friends worked with Miss Jennifer on the Rings and the Cartwheel mat (mini and full cartwheels). They practiced a skin the cat flip, lunges and h

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andstands against the wall.

Back in the classroom we plunged into Beauty and the Beast. We finished adding definitions to our New Words to Learn Message Board.

 A word in the book that seems to be of IMG 0158particular interest is hideous. We’ve talked about the definition within the context of Beauty and the Beast and also discussed that it is the opposite of pretty.

 Our older friends created art with sparkly nail polish. We made it VERY CLEAR that this was a special art activity and they SHOULDN’T use Mom’s nail polish as paint! 🙂 Laurie takes full responsibility!!

  For our younger friends, we emptied several nail polish bottles and added water color.

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We spent more time reading the story and studying the illustrations. The two scenes of greatest interest were 1) when Belle uses the mirror to discover her Father in the castle and 2) the Silly Girls who love Gaston. With a few new props and costumes, we acted these scenes out. Jane, Nate and Alma used words (in character) to tell the story. When Jane (as Belle) asked Nate (as Beast) to let her father go, he replied “no!” We discussed that Belle is a book lover.

IMG 0176The Silly Girls giggled (and sang an original/in the works composition!) when Gaston (Simon) walked by them.

 Outside, we moved the sand rakes to the WeeWee side of the yard and raked and played in the leaves!

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As sisters, Jane and Macy made marigold cake!

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 Our Buddy System for lunch is going really well. At this point, each childIMG 0209 knows who their lunch buddy is and what number (marked on the floor/wall) they stand near to take turns washing hands. Today, we took it a step further and marked (with washable marker!) their number on their hand. To this Kai replied “You can’t write on hands! You don’t do that in the world!” Arleigh, too, was concerned and expressed “ummm—we only write on paper!” We explained the purpose and then showed them it would wash right off as they washed their hands for lunch. All was well.IMG 0204

 For lunch we served whole wheat pasta with shredded beef, corn and bananas.

We hope you are enjoying this beautiful day!