Sunnybrook Montessori School

We watched a video of Eric Carle reading his story The Very Hungry Caterpillar, then watched the story of Eric Carle’s The Very Busy Spider. We read Eric Carle’s From Head to Toe, and observed the pictures and noticed how they were made from paper that had been painted then cut and glued to create the pictures. The children each chose an animal or item that they wanted to create using cut paper collage like Eric Carle, then chose painted papers to fit their animal or item of choice. The artists created a flower, two unicorns, a princess, a train, a gorilla family, a monkey, and a butterfly.

We talked about helping. We played “The Wind Blows” and used statements such as “for everyone who likes to help at home,” “for everyone who likes to help dig in the dirt,” “for everyone who needs help zipping a jacket,” “for everyone who needs help sometimes,” “for everyone who likes to shovel the snow,” etc. We then read a social story about how to ask for help, how to appreciate help, how to accept or reject help, and how to respond when told “Yes, please” or “No, thank you. I would like to do it myself.”

We took out the parachute and played some parachute games. We helped Henrietta dance until she danced herself right off the parachute! We took off all our slippers, then listened for our name to be called then ran under, found our slippers, put them back on, then returned to our spots. Our final game was crocodile, where the crocodile goes under the parachute and tugs on someone’s foot to “eat” them and that child then becomes the crocodile.

During sign language with Rose the children took turns signing parts of The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Rose would face the child, who faced the students. She would sign and read, and the child would sign for the audience. They really enjoyed watching and signing!

Susan continued high and low from last week with the bells to the introduction of the C scale this week. First she showed us a xylophone. The children shared observations about the xylophone. They observed that it goes from short to long, it was arranged in rainbow colors with two blues, one at each end, and there were letters on the keys. Susan then asked students to arrange the boom whackers by length, and they made observations about those and how they were the same or different from the xylophone. Finally Susan introduced the glockenspiel, playing the beautiful tones in the C scale. The children identified which instrument was the highest C scale and which was the lowest, then they all took turns whacking the boom whackers on items around the classroom.

The children found that they could do pull ups from the shelf in the dramatic play area, so they jumped or climbed up or got assistance and hung or did pullups and tricks. They asked for the mats, then used them to do more tricks.

The weather went from beachy to winter, so we enjoyed adding another wall to the house, searching for worms, playing in the mud kitchen, creating a giant mud soup, playing with the snow, splashing in puddles, collecting water, and using our imaginations!

Kindergarten students read Eating Fractions and did some fraction work. They finished up the P-T section of their letter books, with the introduction of R, S, and T. They built R out of river rocks and walked R and r on the river rock stepping stones.

Friday morning the early students went on a worm hunt. With the cold snowy days no worms were easily located under stumps, so Michelle helped them dig up the soil in the garden until they had a good collection of worms. We read The Worm by Elise Gravel and An Earthworm’s Life by John Himmelman. We watched a couple short videos of a worm moving and learned how it is a fluid filled tube surrounded by muscles that it contracts and expands to move as it eats tunnels through the soil. The children then each collected a paper towel, water dropper, black paper, and a worm then did some observing and testing. They tested to see whether the worms preferred it wet or dry. They tested to see if they preferred light or dark. They observed the worms moving and noticed that they migrated to wet and dark.

Monday students did some marble painting with Michelle and Laura. They chose colors to dip their marbles in then roll them around to create colorful lines and patterns.

Work on moving the dirt into the yard continued! There are so many hard workers who love shoveling and hauling .

The worms have finally emerged! Thousands of worm holes in the yard were another sign of spring, and worm hunters were busy all week tipping stumps and digging through dirt to find the biggest worm.

Woodland Stone Soup was the theme of the week. We read through the story, then read and invited students to say their lines if they remembered them, then finally we read and practiced the whole story all together. We will continue to rehearse over the next couple weeks until we are ready for recording.

During sign language with Rose we reviewed numbers, seasons, and food, then she signed and told the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Everyone signed the repeating line “but he was still hungry” as it came up in the story.

Susan introduced high and low with the hand bells and we tried our best to order the bells. Some children could efficiently distinguish higher and lower, but some of us had a harder time, particularly as they got closer and closer together.

We began constructing a house/fort using donated wood scraps. The children were excited to use the drill to screw in the pieces and the saw to cut boards to the lengths and sizes that fit. We are in need of more wood scraps if anyone has some lying around to continue work on our fort and potentially make a second.

The kindergarteners did some fraction work with the introduction of whole and quarter. The children made quarter fractions by coloring in one piece of the pie to make 1/4, two pieces to make 2/4, 3 pieces to make 3/4 and four pieces to make 4/4. They also did some money addition work with real coins, using pennies, nickels, dimes and a dollar. Finally to finish out the week they colored a quiet quail for their Qq page and used their bodies to make the letters b, c, and q.

Friday students talked about the different animal classes and what characteristics make a bird a bird, a fish a fish, a mammal a mammal, a reptile a reptile, and an amphibian an amphibian, then they each chose two animals without looking and sorted them by animal class.

We blew up balloons and played keep it up. Some students counted how many times in a row they could keep the balloon up in the air before it fell to the ground.

Our warm week was disrupted by snow on Friday. We were all ready to be done with winter after enjoying our nice warm sunny spring week.

Michelle taught us how to make tempera paint using egg yolks on Monday. Students took turns cracking an egg and separating the yolk from the albumen with their fingers. They then added some liquid water color to the yolks to create the colors they preferred, then got down to creating. When dried, their paintings were beautifully glossy.

The spring weather was so welcome after months of having to layer and tuck and protect all exposed skin. It was wonderful to just throw on a sweatshirt and sneakers and run outside. The bikes came out, including two new donated balance bikes, one from a former student and one from a current student. There was lots of make believe play, enjoying the feel of sand on bare feet in the sand box, cooking in the mud kitchen, kicking the soccer ball, pulling friends in the wagon, running, climbing, biking, and basketball.

Henrietta, Wolfgang, and Tucker Turtle did some role playing around what to do when something happens that we do not like. Students used the puppets to act out some scenarios of social interactions that are hurtful or feel unkind. They acted out and we discussed what to do when someone takes something you are using, hurts you, or calls you a name.

During sign with Rose we reviewed some signs, then she introduced water signs in keeping with our study of the water cycle. She taught us water, river, stream, puddle, rain, snow, ocean, precipitation, evaporation, and condensation, then taught us how to sign our Water Cycle Song.

During Spanish with Zeanny we did our body moving and dancing songs, then played Pictionary. Students took turns drawing either a food item or a family member that we have learned, and the children guessed what was being drawn. Everyone loved the game and are looking forward to playing again another time.

Thursday morning Mandy from Lancaster Floral Design and Garden Center brought three dump truck loads of soil. We enjoyed watching her dump the soil, then immediately got to work filling up the bollards and hauling sled loads into the yard to fill up all the dips, divots, and holes in the yard. It was hard work, as the soil was very dense and wet, but there were some determined shovelers.

By Friday everyone was pretty restless and just needing to get outside so after snack we headed out to enjoy the sunshine, postponing science to the end of the morning when we played a bird call game with those who wanted to participate. The children were partnered and together decided on their unique bird call. One partner was then blindfolded, and the other made the bird call. The blindfolded partner used their sense of hearing to carefully navigate toward their cawing, tweeting, hooting, or cooing partner.

To continue our study of birds we read Reschenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco, then created dyes using a variety of food items. We used turmeric, blueberries, beets, spinach, and onion skins, boiled with 2 cups water and 1 tablespoon vinegar. The children colored designs on white eggs with white pastels, then we poked holes in each end and they carefully blew out the yolk and albumen. The children then chose the dye they wanted and let the egg sit in the dye for several minutes. We were surprised by the color the blueberries dyed the eggs – a light black, while the turmeric was a bright yellow, beets created a pink, and the onion skins an orangey brown. The spinach was a dull yellow, likely due to being old and frozen, not the pretty green we were hoping, so no one chose to test it out.

Spring fever, the full moon, and school burn out combined to ramp up energy and decrease focus, so we spent as much time outside as possible expending energy.

During sign language Rose reviewed numbers 1-11 and taught us the teens, and how to count to 100 by 10’s. We learned days of the week and seasons, then the song “The Green Grass Grows All Around.” Wow, was that tricky to keep up with!!

During Spanish we did our body movement songs, practiced counting, sang the family song, then played the “Tu gusto” food game again. Zeanny introduced the fruits papaya (papaya), pine (pinapple), manzana (apple), fraise (strawberry), mango (mango), banano (banana), kiwi (kiwi), and sandia (watermelon). Everyone then chose an egg shaker by asking for the color they wanted and we followed the Spanish directions for how to move them.

We celebrated two birthdays this week. One friend turned 4 early in the week and we shared that her birthday was in the month of March in the season of spring before she walked the Earth around the sun 4 times and was serenaded by the birthday song.

Our other birthday girl turned 6 at the end of the week. We waited to celebrated until lunch time after everyone got some energy out. She donated a wonderfully funny book called Dragons Love Tacos, which the children enjoyed. The newest six year old shared that she was born in April in the season of spring. She walked the Earth very quickly around the sun while we rapidly named the seasons and counted her birthdays.

Kindergarten students have been finishing up another section of their letter books with Susan.

Friday students did more work with eggs. We read the book What’s In That Egg? and talked about all the animals that hatch/emerge from eggs. We then talked about what we learned last week about eggs – the shape of their shells make them very break resistant when put under pressure, but if you hit it on the ground or tap it on something, it will crack and break open. We predicted whether an egg dropped from way up high would break open on the floor. Did it? YES! We then put an egg in a box and dropped it from way up high. Did it break? NO! So we tested it in another box from even higher. Did it break? YES! The children then discussed how to work together as a team and were assigned partners to work with to design a way to drop an egg from way up high and keep it from breaking. Each team chose a box and some materials to package their egg to keep it safe. When everyone was done, the teams decided which order their members would drop their cushioned eggs, then we did the drop test, making sure everyone had a turn.