The Sunnybrook students have been working together all week in the classroom and on the playground. It is wonderful to see them helping each other, working together to problem solve, and compromising.
We found some cut saplings and a sheet on our playground this week, and the children used them to build forts. The grass is growing, the crab apple tree is flowering, and all the leaves are coming out on the tree branches. Spring has sprung!
Our tadpoles have steadily been getting bigger. Soon we will begin to feed them boiled lettuce. It has been fun to watch them swim around in the tank and see their bodies start to fill out.
We finished writing our story this week, and have begun to illustrate it. It inspired many students to start writing their own stories. It is exciting to see them use their imaginations and knowledge to invent tales of their own.
At the art table this week we did some rock painting. The students really enjoyed selecting, shaking, and squeezing out their own paint colors, then making fabulously colorful rock creations.
On Wednesday we celebrated a 6th birthday. Our birthday boy held the globe and orbited the sun six times, once for each year he has been alive. He chose to share ice cream sandwiches for his birthday treat – yummy!
We played a couple of cooperative games this week during circle time that encourage the students to work together and listen closely to each other. The first was shark tank, where the shark children swim around until the music stops, then they work together to fit everyone into the “tank.” After every swim the tank gets smaller and smaller and they have to make sure that they find a space for everyone to fit. The second game, “I’m Going on a Picnic, and I’m Going to Bring . . . ” requires the children to listen closely and keep track of what each participant is bringing on a picnic, then repeat each item and add their own. They were encouraged to help friends as requested.
On Wednesday we had a special visit from Puddle with Believe in Books. Puddle and his best friend, Toot, live together in a lovely little house in the country, and star in several stories by well known author and illustrator Holly Hobbie. We listened to the story, Curious You, On Your Way, by Kathleen Weidner, then we each got to greet Puddle and pick a book.
Friday students read The Magic School Bus: Wet All over – A Book About the Water Cycle. We discussed the water cycle and how water can be gas, liquid, or solid, and how it changes from one state to another. We learned the words condensation and evaporation, and began an evaporation experiment. We listened to Gerry Scott read, If You Give a Pig a Pancake then she painted a design on each child’s face. It was such a wonderfully warm spring day that we spent the afternoon outside. We did a tree study by comparing the birch tree and the crab apple tree in our play yard. We examined the bark, leaves, branches, and flowers, then painted pictures of each tree. The children have been practicing jumping over a jump rope this week, and by Friday they had it down!
Thank you to all of you who donated, spread the word, and participated with our yard sale fundraiser on Saturday. It was a great success!