This week we enjoyed reading “Over in the Arctic” and acting like our favorite arctic animals. The book mimics the song “Over in the Meadow” and the children enjoyed howling like arctic wolves, hopping like arctic hares, growling like wolverines and so on. We read a story about an Inuit child and her mother “Mama Do You Love Me?” and our afternoon students enjoyed two Inuit legends, “A Promise is a Promise” and “Ka-Ha-Si & The Loon.” We are also working on a poem/fingerplay called “5 Little Inuit.”

On Tuesday morning we used white paint and glue to make puffy snow pictures. They came out great!

During music we did the cross-over dance. We put different colored stickers on oppositte hands and feet and the children had to reach down and cross over their body to match up the colors. This helps the children work on crossing mid-line, which is a developmental skill. It was also a great way to get moving (and anything that involves stickers is met with enthusiasm).

We also revisited some favorites such as, the “Mexican Hat Dance” and “The Rattlin Bog.”

We enjoyed a great Spanish lesson on Tuesday and on Thursday our older children worked on spelling out animal names in Spanish with our Movable Alphabet.

Lots of great work has been going on in the class! Our 3 year olds are naming/matching colors, shapes and numbers. We are working on our phonetic sounds and matching items to letters. Our older children were very busy this week! We had one child complete a geography map and another make a paper mache dragon. On Thursday we learned about static electricity and enjoyed using balloons to pick up sand, shredded paper and our hair!

Many of the children are enjoying our Metal Inset work. The Metal Insets are a wonderful excercise that are used for direct prepartation for handwriting.

The first step is simply tracing the shape of the inset and learning to hold a pencil. Over time, the children begin to master the movements to make a continuous solid line around the inset. Then, variations can be added, such as adding lines or designs inside the shape. Many of our children choose to pin punch out the shape after, which is more great fine motor work. This attention to detail helps your child develop those precise, intricate movements needed for handwriting. It’s also one of the most enjoyed activities in the classroom.

“My children thus perfect themselves in writing without writing.” Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

We are still collecting milk jugs! Please keep sending them in!

This week we learned some Brain Gym activities and other exercises to help regulate our engines when they feel to high or low. We made a corner in the classroom where the students can go to sit quietly, perform yoga or Brain Gym poses and read stories. We enjoyed reading, “I Want It!” and learning what to do if we want to use something someone else is working with. We also enjoyed, The I’m Not Scared Book, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day.

On Thursday we talked about the Arctic and the Inuit people. We enjoyed looking at a book on Igloos and reading about how they are built. The children were interested in learning how snow and ice can keep people warm. We found the North and South Pole on the globe and read about Emperor Penguins in the book The Emperor’s Egg.

We are enjoying a fun sensory activity using Arctic animals and ice cubes.  To do this work the children request some “icebergs” from a teacher and the ice is placed onto the blue tray which represents the ocean.  They can then use the small animals and figurines to act out arctic scenes.

Our Friday students traced, cut and painted beautiful Emperor Penguins.

We’ve started construction on our igloo. We need LOTS of milk jugs. Keep bringing them in!

An outdoor igloo More snow may be needed.

Happy New Year!

The students returned rested and ready to work. We had a great week talking about feelings/emotions. We practiced our happy, sad, scared, angry and silly faces and sang, “If You’re Happy and You Know It.” We enjoyed reading the books, My Many Colored Days, Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns to Listen and When Sophie Gets Angry, Really, Really Angry. We also had Impulsive Puppy puppet and Timid Tiger puppet join us at circle to talk about how our “engines” can feel high, low or just right. We thought of some things we could do if we were feeling too high (overly excited, not being safe) or too low (shy, sleepy) to turn our engines to “just right.” The children really enjoyed the lesson and connected with the feelings. We learned how to give a thumbs up for feeling too high, a thumbs down for feeling low and a thumb in the middle for feeling just right. Many students shared with me “Miss Emily I’m feeling just right!” throughout the week.

The children have been very busy with their work this week. The younger children have been busy matching, working on phonetic sounds and numbers,  shape and color recognition. Our 3- year- olds enjoyed playing a game with the Geometric Solids on Tuesday morning. We learned the names of cylinder, sphere and cone and then we hide one under a napkin and they had to guess which one it was by feeling. There was also a lot of great fine motor work: stringing beads, scooping, pouring, lacing cards, cutting with scissors, Metal Inset shapes. Busy, busy!

Our older children are working on recognizing numbers up to 100 with the Ten board, the Short Chains and the Hundred Board. We also worked on writing our numbers correctly with a wet sponge on a chalkboard, followed by a piece of chalk. They very much enjoyed this activity and it helped them when they did their next handwriting worksheet.

A few of our older students have begun to work on their Geography Maps. The students pin punch around the continents to make their own world map. It’s a great hands on way to learn about geography. We are also reading lots and lots! Everyone is making great progress. Please continue to read with your child at home.

A big thank you to all our Sunnybrook family and friends for coming to our Holiday Event. The children did a great job and it was so nice to see everyone. We appreciate the help setting/cleaning up and providing snacks!

Also, thank you to everyone who brought in a non-perishable good for the food pantry. I brought the donations over the week before Christmas.

Holiday Event pictures coming soon! If you have any to share please email them to me!