This morning, our friends enjoyed different activities in the front of our classroom. We enjoyed playing on the habi-trail, with the wall maze and sliding down with friends. We also enjoyed throwing balls and then running to retrieve them. Some of our friends sat down to play with the Peek-a-Blocks and explore what was inside of them.
We then made our way to the kitchen to engage in sensory play. Ms.Tina gave us a tray that had different items hidden in shaving cream like food pouch tops, a waffle block, and half a plastic egg. Our friends enjoyed mixing some green glitter into the shaving cream, finding the hidden items, and rubbing the cream on their hands and arms.
Our friends went outside to enjoy the nice morning weather and to engage with their favorite outside activities. We rode bikes down the hill, played in the sandbox, and went down the slide with a friend.
Breakfast: Puffins cereal and fresh strawberries.
Lunch: Whole grain brown rice with shredded pork, corn, and fresh pear slices.
Afternoon Snack: Whole grain Wheat Thins crackers with peanut butter.
Everyone had a wonderful time at the farm today! We actually had an amazing conversation in the car on the way beginning when we drove over the Saint Joe river. Hannah asked about whether it was a lake or a river, which started a discussion about lakes, rivers, gravity and why water always flows to the lowest point. William had a wonderful question asking “How does the water get on top of a mountain?”, so of course we covered the whole water cycle. This lead to talking about the sun…it was mentioned as a cause of evaporation. Katherine asked “how does the sun stay up in the sky?”, so we talked about space, the solar system, gravity some more, the hottest and coldest planets, gas planets, ringed planets, nebulas and the birth of stars. At that point we had arrived at the farm .
The first thing the kids wanted to do was check to see if the baby chicks had grown. They were much bigger. William was excited to see the new “chicken tractor” had been completed remembering how we had seen the farm helpers building it last time. We went for a long walk in the woods. I asked the kids to look for plants that they wanted to identify. We took pictures of the plants I didn’t know. We plan to look through some books during class tomorrow to see if we can identify them. We spend some time working together to move big logs and build forts. Nesta used a branch as a broom to clean things up. After that we walked to the back of the woods and into a field of dandelions. The kids picked bouquets and put the flowers in their hair. We observed some red winged black birds and talked about their nesting habitat. Last we washed our hands at the bathroom and had a snack in the grass. We can’t wait to go back!
Back at Wee Friends, a three year old friend took it upon herself to test all of the markers at the art table. As she tested each marker, she would say the color aloud!
The water sensory table has been a popular activity this week! The water wheel is our favorite item in the bin as children love watching what happens to the water as it makes its way through the wheel and back into the bin.
The art easel was opened early this morning as children took turns painting large pieces of paper together! Amelia and a peer stood together, painting the piece of paper with various colors such as red, blue, and orange. These tandem painting opportunities have been our favorite this week!
“It’s the things we play with and the people who help us play that make a difference in our lives.”
-Fred Rogers
Breakfast– Chex and banana.
Lunch– Brown rice with shredded turkey, fresh cantaloupe/watermelon/clementines, and fresh pepper/broccoli/carrots.
PM snack– Whole wheat crackers with peanut butter and a mix of toppings including peanuts, sunflower seeds, and pepita seeds.
Everyone has been enjoying experimenting with water movement in the sensory bin this week! Today one of our friends noticed that the the spinning wheels were similar to the ones at a car wash and the whole group began playing “car wash”. We added some cars and some soap to support this imaginative way of exploring. The group turned it into quite an elaborate system, pretending the cars went in the top, down the tubes and through the paddle wheels. They played all morning!
PREK2: In group today we read “My School is a Zoo”. At the end of the story everyone recalled their favorite animal character from the book!
We enjoyed LOTS of time outside in the beautiful spring weather! A group of older friends enjoyed writing their names in the sand! Child lead philosophy gives kids every angle on pursuing their learning!
Breakfast: Oatmeal with cinnamon
Lunch: Hard boiled farm eggs with fresh watermelon, carrot slices and broccoli florets
PM Snack: fresh guacamole or humus with whole wheat pita bread
This morning we began our morning with a variety of activities. We relaxed in the cube looking at friends pictures, made the plastic blocks into boats and sang, Row, Row, Row Your Boat, and rocked on the rainbow mats or made it into a tunnel to lay under.
Then Ben asked for a shape stackers. We sat at the table and worked to stack the shapes we had back on the stacker or stacked the bowls by size.
We then took the construction paper that we tore into pieces and made a collage with it on Con-tact paper. We were able to feel the sticky paper on our fingers as we laid down our paper to make it stick onto it. They are on display in our windows!
While friends were waiting for their turn or after they had finished the collage, they engaged with the wooden loose parts and animals on the carpet. They built with the blocks or explored the animals and made their sounds.
We then headed out to enjoy the nice beautiful day and engaged in riding bikes down the hill, use our imaginative play skills as we played with the sea animals, dug in the sand and played with the trucks by the little house.
Breakfast: Overnight oatmeal with cinnamon/sugar mixture and bananas.
This morning our friends danced and sang the “Ring-Around-the-Rosie” song with their friends. They did it all together as a group and then paired off to do it with a friend.
Eleanor inspired our sensory activity today. Last week when friends worked on their art, Eleanor enjoyed ripping her paper. Today, Miss Bekah gave each of us a different colored paper that we then ripped into tiny pieces of paper. We collected them into tins so that we can use them for a future art activity.
We then made our way outside to engage with some of our favorite activities. Our friends played with rocks and trucks in the rock area, cooled off in the shade, and painted. Our friends especially enjoyed painting and working on a collaborative art piece.
Breakfast: Whole grain Kix cereal with fresh apple.
Lunch: Whole grain wheat tortilla with peanut butter, 1/2 stick of mozzarella cheese, mini sweet bell peppers, and fresh pear slices.
Afternoon Snack: Whole grain wheat bagel with cream cheese and fresh strawberries.
**Wee Friends will be closed on Monday, May 27th for Memorial Day.
PREK1 friends get to focus on how things move this week! Today, we focused on modes on transportation. During sign in, children had to write a vehicle that moves faster than a bike. Some answers were car, racecar, and motorcycle.
Science: K.3.2 Investigate that things move in different ways, such as fast, slow, etc.
Later on in group, we read a few pages out of ‘Here and There’ that focused on how people travel in different countries. We learned that it depends on climate and how the country looks as far as hilly, mountainous, or cold! In the book the author shared that a few different modes of transportation are trains, buses, ferries, rickshaws (think bicycle with a cabin attached), or by sled dogs! Did you know that Venice, Italy has no roads at all? Instead, they use a complex network on canals! Nesta shared towards the end of our group session that she road the double decker bus when she lived in London last year!
This morning we experimented with “objects in motion”. We built different types of ramps using a variety of materials. We could make our ramps very steep or nearly level. We also could try sending objects of different weights, materials and shapes down the ramps. We tried wood pieces of different shapes, felt balls and marbles. We noticed that the marbles were rolled down most quickly!
We spent time this morning working on our seed journals. We observed that our radish seeds had stems and leaves. Some of our bean seeds had little loops emerging and white roots. There were some specific details we noticed as we looked carefully at our plants. One thing that we found unusual was that the radish plants were not green but had reddish stems. Another detail was that the radish plants have three leaves. Arthur wrote in his journal that his science experiment “looks like a plant” “:).
Breakfast: Whole wheat toast with butter and bananas.
Lunch: Whole wheat pasta with red kidney beans, fresh cantaloupe/orange slices, and fresh bell peppers/cucumbers.
Today we visited our window seed growing experiment. We took down our beans which we planted a few days ago to see if there were any changes. We found that our radish seeds had started to grow. They all had a root and some had tiny leaves. Some of our beans had begun to sprout a root and some had not. We noticed that the radish seeds seemed to be growing faster than the bean seeds. We worked on using our observational skills to draw what we saw. If we were having trouble we though about what color and what shapes we were looking at, and that seemed to solve the problem. We also worked on describing what we saw using works. Older kids used kid spelling and younger kids got help from a teacher. Hannah took it upon herself to help some of the younger kids with their kid spelling. She also taught them about what letters make the “ING” sound. Paige had a lovely description of the growing roots saying they looked like they had “tiny strings coming out”.
What beautiful and interesting artwork came out of the art center today. We had everything from giant paintings to paper aircraft with boosters made of marker caps!
We had some beautiful journals from PREK2 this week including an “Elephant” and a“fire truck”. At group today we read “My Brave Year of Firsts” which talked about trying new things that might be scary. We talked at the end about things we have done that we had to be brave for.
Breakfast: Brown rice cakes with cream cheese.
Lunch: Hummus on whole wheat tortilla, cantaloupe/kiwi, and fresh cucumber/pepper.
PM Snack: Cheddar block cheese and pretzels.
Wee Sprouts: Fresh broccoli florets with carrot slices.
This morning we engaged with loose parts. We had a bowl, cup, tongs, dominos and pom-poms. We worked our fine motor skills to use the tongs or just our hands to pick up the pom-poms and put them into our bowl or cup.
We then headed out to the classroom and engaged with our color blocks. When they are put together they make a pyramid. We each took a color to look through at our friend. Eleanor took hers to the window sill and placed a beanie monkey that fit well inside it and then looked through it. Eliza used hers to build with.
We then engaged with our shape stackers. We worked at putting the shapes back onto the stacker.
Our friend Charlotte is working on her walking skills. It won’t be long before she is running around the classroom like the rest of us.
We then headed outside to draw with chalk outside on the chalkboard and cement, play in the little house and with the construction trucks in the rock area.
Breakfast: Whole grain brown rice cakes with cream cheese and fresh kiwi/banana.
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