Sunnybrook Montessori School

Montessori preschool & kindergarten in New Hampshire's North Country

May 21, 2022
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Buzzing

There was a lot of energy this week so we spent a lot of time outside, where the children were so busy buzzing around with the bees.  They were digging a giant hole in the back end of the playground, biking all over, playing catch, watching the cable guys work on the lines, having pool noodle battles, playing in puddles, hunting for and collecting worms, slugs, snails, beetles, moths, and toads, building fortresses and forts and hideouts, picking flowers, creating collections of nature items, examining flowers and insects with magnifying glasses, and going on adventures.
setting up shopsearchingthe digging beginsgetting into itwormmud pieson the huntwormsmaking progresscatchto go through or not go through?a collection of wormsa climberslug on a leafa toad in a bowlcollecting waterdigging with the backhoethrough the tunnelrace for the ballchecking out a dandeliontalking and listeninga slow bee on a cold day with pollen on itlooking at the bee in the flowercollecting apple blossom petalsgathering waterit is getting biggermixingcaring for her caterpillarnature collectionbig enough to fit a dumptruckCan you see the little green inchworm?enjoying the sunshinegetting deeperall the plantsthe markers are attached to your shirtreading to friends
The children worked with Michelle to plant flower seeds in the bollards out front.
planting seedsplanting nasturtiums
The Seeds and Sunbeams students had their final session with Emily on Monday.  They picked dandelions and made dandelion chains and crowns and necklaces and bracelets.

We began work on end of year self portraits to compare with our beginning of the year self portraits (for those who did them).
blondself portraithere are my armsmixing up just the right color
We practiced our bee songs and started to finish up our projects for our Bee Presentation.
painting bees
During sign language with Rose we practiced the alphabet and insect signs, then read the Piggie and Gerald story, I Am Invited to a Party!.  We wrapped up with the Five Little Butterflies song, and five different students had a turn to wear the wings and be butterflies.
Hurry, Hurry spray the watercvbeepartyfive little butterflies
We played an insect action game.  The children took turns rolling large dice, then turning over the corresponding number card and everyone did the insect action on the opposite side, such as flutter like a butterfly, pollinate like a bee, buzz like a fly, hop like a grasshopper, chirp like a cricket, etc.
6+3=9chirp like a cricketchew like a beetlepollinate like a beebalancingword matchblueprintta damusic classLego timemuggetsdoing a little readingreading Fly Guy

We celebrated a fifth birthday. The birthday girl very, very, very slowly orbited the sun as we slowly listed the seasons and counted her birthdays. She shared tasty popsicles to celebrate and the children were excited to lick up a grape, tangerine, or cherry pop.  Happy Birthday, birthday girl!
orbitingpopsiclesenjoying their birthday popsicles
Kindergarten students read a series of poems, then wrote their own, brainstorming about rhyming words to create rhyming poems.  They practiced identifying numbers into the hundreds, taking turns both guessing and writing them.  They chose their own math and/or literacy work, with many students choosing to create story books or reinforce their number learning.
writing poetry about their familieshundred boardMarch, March, March, March77writing a number for everyone to readtelling him a number to writeDuring Friday science we explored our sense of touch.  We touched jars that were hot or cold to different areas of our skin to feel temperature, we lightly trailed our fingers up our arms, then gripped our forearms tightly to feel varied pressure, we felt texture that was rough or smooth, and we felt the soft rug and the hard floor.  We then pulled items from a feely bag, using our sense of touch to guess what they were. We discussed how we use our different senses to experience the world, and that through these experiences, we can use our other senses, such as sight, to identify “touch” senses without actually touching, such as hardness, temperature, and texture because our brains have learned what these “look” like through our experiences with wood, snow, sandpaper, etc.
a fenceno peekinga hat blindfoldmatching fabrics by feel
xx

May 14, 2022
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The Heat is On

The temperatures this week were toasty! We spent the majority of our days outside dancing under the hose, filling buckets of water for the mud kitchen, building a teepee tent, riding bikes, having pool noodle battles, digging up plants, repotting them, and selling them in the Plant Shop, building a fortress, going to school to work on computers, and cooking up a variety of soups.

chopping the stumpfilling her bucketsawing the tree to make it the same size as the othersdrawing with sticks in dirtnegotiationsgoofballssnack in the tentdoing their school worka sled bedwater in the bucketfilling bucketscarefully carrying her bowl of waterwater spraymaking mapsfollowing the tributaries of his riverbalancingchefs in the kitchenchecking out the robin eggs in the hydrangea bushmistingoxygen bubblestrying to cool off in the shadedrawing a headstonerainbow in the water showersoggy pool noodle battlesvisiting the plant saledigging a ditch and making a bridgesorting things outher inchworm petwashing up the potsdandilion curliquescollectionsnature items for sale

Rose warmed us up with the Fire Truck song, then we signed the alphabet double handed two times. We practiced our insect signs, including caterpillar, butterfly, bug, mosquito, and worm. Rose then read and signed The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Rose asked for volunteers to be butterflies, and we finished up by singing, signing, and acting out the Five Little Butterflies song.

rwwmosquitoappleplum5 little butterflies

Preparing for our end of year presentation on Bees, courtesy of the Bee Patrol, has been a full time job this week. The songs “The Bee Patrol Anthem,” “Head, Thorax, Abdomen, Legs,” “The Bees Go Buzzing,” and “Have You Ever Gone a Dancing in a Busy Beehive,” were all introduced and practiced over and over. Hopefully we will have them down in four weeks! The students have been researching to answer their questions about bees and working with Lyn to record what they will present. They have continued working on their visuals for their presentation as well. It has been a busy, buzzy week!

a paper mache helperworking on their bee presentations

The children made bee badges, which we cut out and laminated for them to wear as members of the Bee Patrol. They also drew Bee pictures to share for the end of year art show.

making bee badges and a bee hive with RoseBee Patrol Badgesbee pictures

We continued sharing observations about friends who were SAFE, KIND, RESPECTFUL, and RESPONSIBLE and adding to our chain. We read Even Superheroes Make Mistakes and talked about how important it is to take responsibility and own up to our errors and that they are opportunities to learn. We shared some big mistakes that people have made, such as when builders who were constructing a new building for Dartmouth college in Hanover and dug the cellar 10 feet too far in the wrong direction, but how they worked as a team to problem solve and determine how to move forward.

teen boardlooking at insectstheir block wallmaking a pursetransfer workmoving marblescatch and release spider

Kindergarten students have been working on recognizing numbers 0-100, solving addition and subtraction word problems, and determining whether it is an addition or subtraction problem, doing some writing, practicing reading, and working diligently on their bee projects.

matching letters in a wordMac and TabLad had a fat, fat, cat.There were 18 aphids on the leaf.  A ladybug at 6.  How many were left?solving insect word problemswriting a word problemJump with me.identifying numberswriting a number for others to read1003writingDad shot a turkey.I love my family.

During Friday science we read about and discussed the second of the five senses, hearing. We read The Magic School Bus In the Haunted House and discussed how sound travels through the air through vibrations. We learned that the higher the sound, the closer the sound waves are together, and the lower the sound, the further apart they are. We examined the model of the ear then took out the big drum and piled all the felt balls on top. The children took turns in small groups making quiet sounds and gradually getting louder and louder until all the balls were vibrated off.

vibrationsloudermaking them moveflying offeveryone banging

May 6, 2022
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I Spy

We arrived at school to a lovely sign from one of the families expressing appreciation for the Sunnybrook teachers. Thank you so much for your thoughtfulness, Paschal family! This sign set of a slew of appreciation projects enthusiastically orchestrated by the children. Thank you for all the cards, flowers, gifts, and most of all the kind words and pictures. We are grateful to spend our days with your children and have you all as such amazingly supportive families. Thank you!

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week

Children coated large newsprint paper with liquid cornstarch then placed a second piece over it. After smoothing the two pieces together they turned into ghosts as we placed it over their heads. They turned back into children, now wearing hats, when the edges were rolled up into brims. When their hats dried and stiffened some of the children added tissue paper to make them colorful.

painting with liquid starcha ghost girlhappy in her hathat makingadding colorRolling the brim

We signed and sang the alphabet with Rose, learned several insect signs, including caterpillar, butterfly, and mosquito, read the Gerald and Piggie story and sang Tingalayo with a new verse about hunting and fishing.

Hurry, hurry spray the waterVmosquitoworm

The children worked together to make a list of all the things that we know about bees. They then listed all the questions that they wanted to answer about bees. We read quite a few books and watched a couple of videos to get our questions answered, and will continue researching and recording what we learn over the next few weeks.

the set upfound a pumpkin seedwiggling wormsbusy chefsa birthday with 5 candles for momputting paper in her housetaping her kite stringsitting on a bench

Henrietta and Wolfgang visited. Henrietta shared some kind friend actions that Wolfgang and Tucker Turtle did that helped her feel included and valued, such as sharing with her, noticing and commenting about her drawing, and inviting her to play. The children then shared some kind friend acts that friends or siblings did both at school and home, and we recorded them on a slip of paper, rolled it into a loop, and started our paper chain of safe, kind, respectful, and responsible acts.

If you're happy and you know it, laugh out loudIf you're mad and you know it, walk awayreading with Michellesilly facestransfer worklabeling her drawings in her Vv bookmaking the clementine glowtransfer worktaking notesbalancing the scalea hard puzzle to solvecaterpillar life cycleleft to rightspooningnesting dolls<a heart for momcutting and coloring

Kindergarten students continued work tracing, coloring, and pin punching continents for their continent maps. They practiced counting by fives and did some nickel addition. Finally they got started on their research for the end of year presentation on bees, both deciding what information they wanted to learn and present, and how they would do that – with a poster, puppet, performance, song, 3D model, etc. They then began carefully working on their presentations.

pin punchingnickel additionnumber scrollshoney beepaper mache beebee life cycle

During Friday science we discussed the five senses and learned about the eye and how it works. We played “I Spy with my little eye,” and the person to guess what the describer saw got to go next. We spied a colorful fish high in the sky, some golden daffodils, a pink barrette, a friend, and several other items in the classroom and out the windows.

model of the eyeinside the eye

xx

April 24, 2022
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Hard Things

a worm

We read the story Petra by Marianna Coppo about a rock and how it exists in the world. At the end it is found by a child who paints it to look like an elephant. The children reviewed the expectations for how to use acrylic paints then donned their T-shirt smocks and got to work smothering their rocks with color.

greenall the colorscareful worksplatteringmixed together gray

Rose warmed us up with Hurry, Hurry, Drive the Fire Truck then the children took turns signing names. Rose reviewed amphibian and other related signs. She read and signed the Piggy Gerald story Elephants Can’t Dance. We always love stories with Rose! To end we sang and signed Tingalayo with two new verses suggested by the students, where Tingalayo read a book and Tingalayo danced and sang.

who wants to spell a nameYgetting a little helpi & nCpiggyGerald dancinghug

We read the stories Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall and Emmanuel’s Dream, by Laurie Ann Thompson, a true story about Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, who was born in Ghana with only one working leg. It was a heartbreaking but inspiring story. We tried hopping all around the classroom on one leg to see how long we could do it before we got too tired, and found that it was very challenging and we could only do it for about a minute or two, unlike Emmanuel, who would hop 2 miles to school and then back again each day, played soccer on crutches, hopped while carrying water on his head, and eventually learned to ride a bike with one leg. We talked about how challenging that would be and how he never gave up and worked hard, even moving to the city at 13 and getting a job to send money home, then later biking all around Ghana to raise awareness about how able those with disabilities can be.

a river of watera mud picnica bridge into the tunnelmuddinscooping up water with the excavator shovelstopping by the store for suppliestending to their patienttaking a biking breakmeasuring out the pit to prepare for the woodchipsplaying with the dirt on the hillspinning wheelsspinning all in a rowWood chips deliverythe house on woodchipstaking a nappushing a friend on a bikeclimbing together

We read and talked about being a super friend, and what that looks like; including others, taking turns, being flexible, calming down and thinking before acting, and using gentle hands. We shared some of the ways that students have been super friends and how they have demonstrated the classroom expectations of BE RESPECTFUL, BE RESPONSIBLE, BE SAFE, and BE KIND, both at school and at home. We invited children to share when they observe others being a super friend and/or following the classroom expectations. We will make a paper chain of these actions.

getting the water table readywriting and drawingreading with Rosewater playaddition worksoapy water playenjoying bags of Scooby snacks with kind notes from a friendgiving Scooby Snacks with kind notes to everyonemaking watchesfingerpaintingbuilding the 100 boardRr items & sight words

The Bee Patrol has been planning and plotting about how to keep bees safe. They met to set a Mission Statement: To Keep Bees Safe, and to determine how to best do this: through educating others, based on their decision to form the bee patrol after learning how important bees are to our survival. They have invited everyone who is interested to participate, and some members have begun working on gathering information and creating ways to educate others about bees and why they are important.

Top Secret Bee Patrol MeetingSome Bee Patrol members sporting their badges

Kindergarteners were introduced to subtraction, and really enjoyed challenging their brains to solve subtraction problems. We went outside Thursday afternoon to fill our pirate treasure boxes, hide them, then plunder others, using our math skills to subtract to solve how many coins were plundered, then addition when adding in the new treasure we had plundered. It was a bit confusing but fun, so we will keep working on smoothing out the kinks.

Reading to the classintroduction to multiplicationIt was time to bat.using a numberline to solve subtraction problemsKindergarten subtraction timeusing fingers to do subtractionsubtraction using the finger counting down strategygetting some guidance from Michelle

During science on Friday the children extended their experiments from last week where they used a balance to determine how many animals were needed to balance one heavier animal, to using a scale and adding weights to determine the weight of a particular animal. The children documented their findings with words, numbers, and/or pictures.

how much does an elephant weigh?a black bear is 3x20, 1x10, 1x5, and 3x1 grams = 78how much does a toad weigh?recording her findings - 1 orangutan + 1 moose = 100 gramsWeighing a badgerdocumenting their findingsa beaver is less than 50 grams