Sunnybrook Montessori School

Stacey and Lil Zemla came in to do an art project with us Monday. They read the story Petra, about a rock who has been sitting for thousands of years and eventually is picked up by a child and painted to look like an elephant. The children picked rocks from our rock pile then washed and painted them with acrylic paint.

We continued to practice Woodland Stone Soup. We hope to have a dress rehearsal soon!

We had three lambs visit with the Morrison family on Tuesday. The children loved watching (and chasing) them as they ran all around the playground. One lamb was very tame, and some of the children had the opportunity to bottle feed it. The other two were not as tame, and the children really wanted to chase and catch them. When it was time to go we sat on the stumps and watched the sheepdog follow the commands to help herd them.

During sign language Rose talked about rules, where we might have rules, why we have rules, and what the rules are at school, just like the rules Mr. Gumpy had for the children and animals before going for a boat ride. The children shared some of the school rules and Rose showed us how to sign them. The children then took turns signing the story of Mr. Gumpy’s Outing, imitating Rose as she read and signed. We then sang and signed the song BINGO.

During Spanish with Zeanny we practiced counting, she tried to trick us with the song Cabeza, Hombros, Piernes, Pies (Head, Shoulder, Legs, and Toes), and then we did some silly dancing with La Marcha. Zeanny then introduced how to set a mesa (table). She introduced all the items needed and how to place everything. This work will be left out in the classroom for the children to practice.

Kindergarten students did some hundreds, tens, and ones place number building work. They rolled three dice, and decided which number would represent each place, then wrote and built that number. They continued working on their understory. They each chose an animal that lives in the understory to draw, color, and cut out. They considered the size of the animal they chose to draw then compared the size to the other animals and selected an appropriately sized paper, from small to large. They practiced the alphabet by building and walking letters using the stepping stones in the yard.

The Physician’s office continued to be busy.

We did a little house renovating. The children love to climb up and sit on the roof, so we took off the back panel and added a ladder. We also began construction on the second house. Thank you to the Sansoucy family for the new saw and mitre box, screws, and square! They have been very helpful!

Students checked out the worm house throughout the week and observed the tunnels they created and how they mixed the sand and soil together.

This week for Friday science Michelle introduced the parts of a seed and the life cycle of a plant. She showed us a video about how seeds become plants, then she gave each student four different types of bean/pea seeds that had been soaked, and a magnifying glass to examine them. The children carefully peeled off the seed coat, located the embryo, which would become the root, and identified the endosperm, which is the biggest part of the seed and will feed the plant until it has sent a shoot up through the soil and formed leaves that will begin using sunlight, air, and water to make its’ own food.

We were introduced to pour painting in the style of Holton Rower during Monday art. We watched a time lapse video of the assembly of a base and the pouring of cups of acrylic paint over the base. We watched as it flowed down and was pushed further out into a flower pattern as additional colors were added. The children made their own mini pour paintings after donning T-shirt smocks and selecting blocks and their preferred colors of acrylic paint.

The children began playing doctor last week, so we brought out the medical instruments and set up a physician’s office in the dramatic play area. There were so many busy doctors and nurses seeing all the patients with ailments and in need of check-ups. We introduced some models of the nasal cavity and the inner ear, as well as our skeleton, John, with his 206 bones, that the doctors could refer to as needed. We took out the game Operation so surgeons could get some practice keeping their hands steady and earn a little money.

We read our Using the Toilet story and discussed bathroom etiquette and respect for others. We talked about how everyone has private areas that are covered by underwear and those areas are only for themselves to see and sometimes their doctors and parents and occasionally teachers if help is needed in the bathroom, but not for friends or anyone else.

Work continued construction on the house. The children attached planks for the third wall, sawing off the parts that were too long, and added a roof that they can climb on (after asking a teacher). We are so grateful to the Sansoucy’s who donated two drills and a bunch of lumber, and the McIlveens who donated a big stack of lumber this fall!!

We received some new large hollow blocks, and the children were anxious to play with them. Some students demonstrated how to carry the longer blocks to keep everyone safe. They constructed some fantastically creative structures!

Rose read and signed the story of Mr. Gumpy’s Outing, about Mr. Gumpy who takes the children and animals out for a ride in his boat, as long as they agree to ride peacefully to avoid tipping. They go along calmly for a while until eventually they begin to squabble, flap, trample, bleat, hop, chase, etc. and the boat tips over and they all end up in the water before going back for tea. The story had many familiar signs with a few new ones, including boat, tip, river, squabble, and trample. Rose then taught us how to sign and sing “Sally the Camel,” which was a lot of fun!

Susan continued work with high and low using the glockenspiel. Children took turns striking a note that was either higher or lower, whichever Susan asked them to find. They then had fun playing the boom whackers again all around the room.

During Spanish with Zeanny we sang some of our songs then played a super fun game of color tag. Zeanny would say a color in Spanish, and everyone who was wearing that color would run and she would try to tag them. If tagged, you became a tagger until all but one had been tagged. That person then became the next tagger. It was so much fun!

Kindergarten students are at the end of the alphabet, so they worked on the letter U. They painted a forest of trees and brainstormed a list of things to add to the UNDERSTORY. They discussed all the things that might be found in the understory of a forest. They discussed what you would see looking up if laying on the ground, and painted it. They even painted some snags – trees that had fallen and got stuck in another tree. They counted the days up to 145 and painted the fence pickets again, each child painting a multiple of a number, while Susan challenged them to find particular numbers using math questions.

Worms were everywhere this week and the hunters were busy finding them all! The children collected buckets and bowls FULL of worms! Dozens, and dozens of worms!

Friday students built a worm jar with Michelle. Michelle discussed with them how worms burrow down through the soil and sand and how they eat the leaves and greens at the surface and aerate the soil as they pass through. We found some worm castings (worm poop) and discussed how they are full of nutrients that make the soil rich and healthy. The children then found cups and bowls, which they filled with soil, sand, or leaves & grass. We placed a smaller jar inside a large jar and the children took turns adding their sand or soil to create layers, then put in a layer of grass and topped it with some carrot and cabbage greens and moistened it by spraying with water after adding several handfuls of worms. The top was covered with cheese cloth then black paper was placed around the outside to make it nice and dark, just the way worms like it. In the afternoon we took a peek and saw one worm beginning to burrow down. We are excited to check it out next week to see more burrows and how the layers may have changed and mixed.

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.