Sunnybrook Montessori School

Our chilly mornings led to warmer days, some with sunshine, others with clouds and rain.  We raked up wet brown leaves and hauled them away, created obstacle courses, played chasing games, climbed up and over and sideways, played some soccer, and pretended to be police and bad guys.

Wassily Kandinsky, who is known for his painting Square with Concentric Circles, inspired our circle art this week.  We used various sized circle cups, covers and containers to print black circles on paper.  Next week the children will use bright colors to fill in the circles.

Tammy continued to guide children while they created their moon phases charts, first painting their two plates black, cutting a notch in one, punching out the moon phases, matching and pasting them around the plate in the proper order, then connecting them with a brad. It was a lot of work and they accepted and completed the challenge!

The book The Moon, by Gail Gibbons, began a discussion of what the moon is and is not.  Our moon education continued with a brief video by National Geographic, titled Moon 101 (which was really a more advanced review of what we learned in the book, but with video visuals).  We read that the moon is made of rock and dust and is the only (natural) space satellite orbiting the earth.  We learned that it is the most visible light in the night sky because although it is not the biggest, it is the closest to the earth, and although it does not create its own light, it reflects the light from the sun, making it appear to shine.  We learned that the moon takes about 1 month to orbit the earth, and the same side always faces earth, so we never see the back, or dark side, of the moon.  We also learned that astronauts landed on the moon for the first time 50 years ago, and they left footprints that are still there today because there is no wind or rain on the moon.  With no atmosphere to filter the sunlight, there is no blue sky on the moon, just black space.  We looked at pictures, and watched a snippet of a video recording the moon, and observed all the craters covering the moon.  We learned that asteroids and meteorites hit the moon, creating craters.  Because there is no atmosphere to protect it, unlike Earth, and because there is no wind, rain, vegetation, or volcanoes, etc. the craters remain as they are for billions of years.

During Tuesday outside time we took some pans with various types of materials/surfaces, and some “asteroids” (balls) and tested to see what happens when we drop or throw them.  We made hypothesis about what would happen then tested to see if our hypothesis were accurate.  We tested using light, medium, and heavy balls, both dropping and throwing, on wet sand, flour, moon sand (flour & baby oil), and play dough.  We observed that when we threw asteroids at the flour, it poofed up and out and created nice round craters.  The moon sand seemed to most resemble what happens on the moon, pushing round craters down and sometimes fracturing out around them.  The play dough barely dented, and the sand made craters if we threw the heavier balls quite hard.

We took a practice tour of the classroom to see how we would guide our families around the room on Thursday evening and introduce them to our room and all the materials we enjoy using.  We had fun pretending to be Lyn’s family and asking her questions about her classroom.  There were some really thoughtful questions!

We read some stories about friendship, including Friends, by Helme Heine and Hello Hello, by Brenden Wenzell.  We discussed what a friend is.  What makes a good friend?  What do good friends do?  The children shared that good friends play together, talk and listen to each other, play chase, take walks, share, build with blocks, etc.  We sang the friendship songs Make New Friends and The More We Get Together.

The Halloween songs Stirring Our Brew, Five Little Pumpkins, and The Ghost of John were introduced.  We all really liked the silly one about the skeleton ghost, John, who gets chilly with no skin on!  We read the Halloween stories Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything, My Neighbor is a Witch, and Inside a House That Is Haunted.

During Sign Language with Rose we learned some action signs for school. First Rose demonstrated a sign where she held out her palm, then used two fingers from her other hand to scan up and down her palm. When she asked the children what they thought that sign might be, they had several guesses, finally naming “reading,” the sign she was making. We also learned walk, which is hands walking, run, which looks like our fingers running, share, which is made by holding the hand facing you with the thumb up and sweeping the opposite hand along the L made by the palm and thumb, and play, folding in the middle fingers with the thumbs and pinkies out, then shaking them.

We celebrated a fifth birthday on Thursday with tasty peanut butter cup peanut butter cookies.  The birthday girl grinned happily while quickly orbiting the candle sun five times with the globe while we listed the seasons for each rotation.  After the Happy Birthday song she blew the candle out in one try!  Happy birthday, 5 year old!

Thursday evening was Bring Your Family to School Night.  The children enjoyed giving their families a tour and introducing some of their favorite areas, activities, and materials.  There were lots of demonstrations showing how to take out a mat, remove work from the shelf with two hands, set it up, complete it, and put it all away, rolling up the mat and returning it to the pot when finished.  Hopefully you had a chance to see your child’s self and family portraits, which most of them finished up this past week. Thank you for taking the time to visit so your child could share their classroom with you!

Friday students learned about one particular mammal this week.  In celebration of bat week, we were introduced to bats, which make up ¼ of all mammals!  We watched a video of Pamela Reed reading the story of Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, about a young fruit bat who is separated from her mother when attacked by an owl, and raised by a family of birds.  We then watched an informational video about bats, pausing to discuss and share.  We learned that bats are mammals who fly, and their wings are made of skin stretched over their finger bones, making them able to move and turn quickly in the air.  They are nocturnal, meaning they are awake at night and sleep during the day, and hang upside down by their feet to sleep.  We learned that bats are very important to their ecosystems.  Microbats, which are insectivores, eat so many mosquitos (1000 per hour!!) that they are important for pest control.  Fruit bats help with pollination and spreading fruit seeds for new plant growth by eating then pooping out the seeds far away.  We also learned that microbats use echolocation to find insects to eat in dark places, like caves.  We pretended to be bats using echolocation and eating insects, or fruit bats sniffing out and eating fruit, then pooping out the seeds.  Several children traced, colored, and cut out bats, which we hung from the ceiling.

Friday students requested the thinking and talking bubbles activity. This time they thought hard to answer in their heads the question, “If I could be anything when I grow up, what would I be?” They then took turns whispering to Lyn what they want to be, then calling on friends to guess what they were thinking before moving their thought to the talking bubble and sharing with their words that they wanted to be a unicorn, a mom, an army man, Anna, an astronaut, a kitty cat, and everything!

We had clouds, sun, wind, and rain this week to give us some weather variety.  The children climbed up, passed over, and balanced on stumps, tables, and benches assembled into an obstacle course.  A restaurant served a wide variety of dishes from blueberry soup, to mac and cheese with hotdogs, Nick’s Pizza (from Santa’s Village), waffles with maple syrup, and strawberry lemonade.  Some of us had Santa’s Village adventures riding the log flume, roller coaster, and skyway tram.  Trucks were hauling leaves, digging huge holes, and getting repairs in the shop.

The art table was busy with Earth and moon activities.  We reviewed the layers of the Earth with Susan, then she showed us an activity to make our own Earths with the four layers.  She started with a marble as the inner core, a layer of clay for the outer core, a thicker layer of play dough for the magma filled mantle, and a super thin layer of aluminum foil for the crust.  Most of the children created their very own Earths, some using permanent markers (after donning T-shirt smocks) to add land and water. The children also began work on moon phases charts with Tammy. They first painted two paper plates black, then punched out pictures of the moon in 8 different phases and the corresponding labels. Once the paint was dry, they cut a notch in one paper plate, glued the moon phases and labels to the other plate, then attached them with a brad so you can turn the top plate to track the phases. With help from Tammy they are matching the phases and labels to ensure they are in the proper order.

We read several stories about the moon; Moon by Britta Teckentrup, A Big Mooncake for Little Star, and Faces of the Moon.  Susan recited several great moon poems and songs, including The Daytime Moon, The Moon, about how the moon has no light of its own, and Who Nibbles the Moon? We discussed how the moon gets its light.  Does it make its own? Does it come from somewhere else?  We turned off all the lights and looked at our moon model.  It was not light and glowing, making its own light like when we light the candle sun for birthdays.  When we shined the light on it we saw it light up, reflecting the light just like the moon reflects the light of the sun.  We learned that the moon is actually grey and made of rock and dust.  A moon is not a planet like Earth or a star like the sun.  It is a space rock that orbits the Earth.  We discussed how the moon looks different on different nights, sometimes looking big and round, and sometimes small and thin.  We wondered why the moon changes like this.  The children took turns holding an earth model and a moon model while the sunlight shone on them.  As the moon passed behind the earth, we observed that the Earth created a shadow over the moon, so what we could see of the moon changed from a crescent to quarter, to gibbous, to full and back.

In the sensory table the children measured out and combined flour and baby oil to make some soft moldable moon sand. They had great fun pushing, packing, and molding it into various shapes and structures.

We read A Tale of Two Beasts, by Fiona Roberton.  The story is divided into two tellings, first from the girl’s perspective, then from the creature’s perspective.  They both have different versions, ideas, thoughts, and feelings about what happened.  Some children made observations about how the two “beasts” were feeling based on their expressions and body language.  We talked about perspective taking, and understanding that thoughts and understandings about things may be different or the same, but we only know what someone else is thinking if they say it.  We introduced thinking bubbles and discussed how thinking is done in your head where you think in words and pictures, but they are silent and only you know what they are.  Other people my make a guess about how you might be feeling and why based on your facial expressions and body language, but no one can know the thoughts in your head unless you speak them.  We introduced talking bubbles and discussed how we can share our thoughts, feelings, ideas, and observations by voicing them.  We read There’s a Bear in My Chair, then asked everyone to close up their lips tight and just THINK, without speaking, about the one food that they would choose to eat right now if they could have anything.  Some students took turns going with Tammy to write down their food on the back of their thinking bubble.  They then called on other students to guess what they were thinking.  When it was time, we moved their food word to the speaking bubble and they told everyone what they had been thinking.  Perspective taking has been shown by researchers Larry Aber and Kenneth Dodge to be one of the primary skills needed to handle conflict.

This week during sign language with Rose we learned seasonal signs.  First we learned the sign for fall (the season), formed by tilting one arm and brushing the fingers of the other hand by the elbow.  The trees start to loose their leaves, so we learned the sign for leaf, placing a flat hand at the end of a pointed finger.  The temperature changes, so we learned the sign for cool, which is simply fanning a hand by your face.  Pumpkin is made by the letter P sign tapped on top of a fist, and for turkey we take two fingers to outline the turkey waddle down the throat.

During Spanish Thursday morning with Zeanny we sang all the songs!  The color song, the body song, Cabeza, Hombros, Piernes, Pies (Head, Shoulders, Legs & Feet), and played arriba (up) & abajo (down).  We played games and made rhythms about colors, positions, speed and greetings with colorful scarves & egg shakers, and read about an Oso (bear) and his casa (house). 

Katie and A.O. from Believe in Books visited to read us a story about the zoo.  They had a big suitcase and Katie asked us if we knew what an imagination is.  The children responded that it is playing pretend.  Katie and A.O. put on their imagination adventure hats and asked us to imagine what our adventure hats would look like, and pretend to put them on.  Katie pulled several animals out of the suitcase and named them, though she seemed to be confused about what an elephant is until the children gave her some pointers.  We then used our imaginations to pretend that we were taking a trip to the zoo while A.O. read a story called Animal Strike at the Zoo, It’s True! Afterwards, everyone got to choose a book to take home and keep for their very own. We all made sure to say, “Thank you!” to A.O. and Katie before they adventured off to the next school.

For Friday science we briefly recalled the two groups of living things, plants and animals (there are actually a few others, but we stick to these two more observable groups) and did a plant and animal picture sorting activity.  We then learned that plants and animals are divided into groups by characteristics, and today we learned about mammals.  We read that mammals have hair or fur, their babies are born alive (not from eggs except the echidna & platypus), and the mothers make milk to feed their babies.  We then did a mammal/non mammal sorting activity with our play animals.  It was a bit tricky.  Do kookaburra’s have hair for feathers?  Do whales actually have hair?  Yes, they have whisker like hairs when young!  So many questions to answer. After sorting some children chose to do a plant or animal color/cut/sort activity, but after coloring all the pictures decided to save the cutting and pasting for another day.

The early morning chills were chased away by the warm, bright sun so we could enjoy our outside time with friends.  A new climbing wall, financed, designed, built, and installed by the Schulte family, was waiting for us when we arrived at school this week.  We received a demonstration of how to climb up and over and discussed ways to be safe and respectful while climbing.  It was really hard to patiently wait for a turn at first, but the dedicated climbers stuck it out and made great use of the wall every day.  We are so very grateful to the Schultes!  We played some chasing and running games, including “Are You Sleeping Mr. Bear?” and had races across the playground.  Big Monday rains made lots of water for puddle fun and the mud kitchen.  Bikes, trucks, and wagons negotiated the many obstacles in their way.

Monday students were introduced to the artist Paul Klee, who used lots of shapes in his artwork.  We identified the shapes in each of the pieces of art we examined, then used Castle and Sun as an example to create our own shape art.

We had such a busy week!  Zeanny joined us Tuesday morning to read and talk about GERMS.  We learned that germs are everywhere, and many germs are bad and make you sick.  We talked about ways to keep germs from making us sick, such as keeping fingers out of mouths to avoid getting and sharing germs, keeping toys out of mouths, and catching coughs and sneezes with the inside of the elbow.  Most importantly we talked about washing hands thoroughly with warm soap and water for 20 seconds after using the bathroom, blowing noses, and before eating.  Each child got some glow germ lotion to rub all over their hands then we used a blacklight to see them.  Everyone took turns washing hands to remove the germs, following the routine of getting hands wet, taking one pump of soap, scrubbing out of the water to make lots of bubbles for the count of 20 or the ABC song, then rinsing, drying, and turning off water with our knuckles.

We wrapped up our study of the earth and are moving on to the moon.  Susan played some fun rotating, revolving, and orbiting games with us.  Children took turns being the sun and the earth.  As the earth child revolves around the sun, it rotates on its axis.  As it turns to face the sun, it becomes day, and when facing away, it is night.  As Susan spun the earth child around, the children would call out day or night when the earth stopped, either facing toward or away from the sun.  Children then took turns being the earth and moon, with the moon revolving around the earth, but NOT rotating.  The moon remained facing the earth and moved sideways around. 

Rose helped us remember and practice the ten signs we learned over the past two weeks, then taught us five new signs.  We learned family, mother, father, sister, and brother (click on each word for a video demonstration of the sign).  Rose told us that all the female signs are in the chin area, while the male signs are formed around the forehead.  After practicing each sign, everyone had an opportunity to choose a sign to show the group.

We learned about fire safety and firefighters.  We read a story about what firefighters do, then shared what we know about firefighters.  We watched a short video of firefighter Beth answering questions and firefighter Pete in his fire fighting gear, then looked at some pictures and talked about a firefighter’s job and how they keep us safe if there is a fire.  We learned that we always go to a firefighter if we are in a fire.  We talked about different types of fires and how there are many good fires, such as campfires, fires in the fireplace to keep us warm, and fire in the stove to cook with. We watched a video about smoke detectors and how to be safe if there is smoke by crawling under the smoke, but keeping our face off the floor away from dangerous chemicals.  We practiced getting LOW when the smoke detector goes off and we see smoke by playing a game where we walked around until we heard the “alarm” then crouched down.  We practiced Get Low and Go by crawling under a large stick with paper “smoke.”  We then watched one more video about what to do if fire gets on our clothes. We learned and practiced how to STOP, DROP, and ROLL. Finally, we did a brief picture game, putting stars on pictures of things that are okay to play with, such as toys, and the not safe symbol on things that are only for adult use, such as candles, matches, stoves, grills, and lighters. 

We read the story Too Many Pumpkins, then Henrietta and Wolfgang chatted with us about how we all like, think, and feel different things, just like how Rebecca Estelle in the story hated pumpkins, but her neighbors all liked them.  The children took turns asking Wolfgang and Henrietta questions about their favorites, and we learned that even though they are best friends, they have different preferences.

For Thursday Spanish Zeanny continued teaching numbers and colors.  She brought colored egg shakers, and each child said the color name they wanted in Spanish, then we took turns shaking different ways by color.  She read two books; Azul el sombrero, verde el sombrero (Blue Hat, Green Hat) and Contado con Frida (Counting with Frida).

We made some cards for Mr. Schulte and Mr. Schulte to thank them for the new mud kitchen and climbing wall.  The children drew some nice pictures and wrote thank you messages.  We really are so very, very grateful to them!

We headed to the library for a visit from a real life Lancaster fire department firefighter, Zina Schmidt.  Ronnie read us a story about a fire station, then Zina showed us how she stays safe in a fire by putting on her fire gear; first boots and jump pants, then jacket, mask, head protection, hat, and gloves.  She talked to us about fire safety and being sure that if we are ever in a fire to go to the fire fighter rather than hiding or running away.  She also asked that we get out of a burning house and stay out – never go back in for toys or special items.  After learning about fire safety, we headed out to see the firetruck.  Zina gave each child a special fire safety coloring book. Thank you, Zina!

Friday students continued to learn about water.  We looked at some solid water (ice), liquid water, and saw a video of boiling water with rising steam to see water as a gas.  We pretended to be water molecules that were moving around gradually and staying in a relatively close space.  We then crowded all together and stayed as close and still as possible to form solid ice, then we gradually began to move and spread, getting faster and faster until we were evaporating water.  We read about the water cycle and did an experiment with condensation, precipitation, and evaporation.  We placed some very hot water into a glass, then placed a bowl with ice over the top.  We observed how water evaporated up to the bottom of the bowl, then precipitated down when the droplets combined and became too heavy to stay up.

It was a cool, dark week, but we took full advantage of the muddy puddles, damp sand, buckets full of rain water, and leaves littering the ground.  There were chefs in the kitchen, landscapers gathering up leaves, taggers freezing friends, leaf chasers catching leaves, construction crews hauling sand, bikers pedaling, catchers playing ball, passengers taking rides, and engineers driving the wagon train.

Monday students were introduced to the artist Yves Klein who invented his very own shade of blue, which he used to create monochrome paintings in blue.  We learned that mono means one, and chrome means color.  The children each selected a color and created their own monochrome paintings.  Throughout the week other children used the six shades of a color to paint many works of art.

As we continued to learn about land, air, and water we read some stories about land and water travel; Sheep on a Ship and Bears on Wheels. We did an activity where each child was given an animal from around the world to place on our air, land, water mat. The first time we did this activity two weeks ago we used familiar animals, but this time many of the animals were from various continents around the world, such as a capybara, wombat, giraffe, and wobegong.

We learned that the 7 large land masses on the Earth are called continents. We are practicing a song about the continents to help us remember their names and locations on a map. The continent puzzle maps were introduced, and many students enjoyed taking them apart and putting them back together, a rather challenging project.

The children used the technique of wax resist for a land and water art project.  They used crayons to color the continents of the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, then painted with blue watercolor paints to add the oceans.  When dry, the children cut the hemispheres out and attached them to a stick.

We read the story Horrible Bear about a girl who is flying a kite, which lands in a bear’s cave.  The bear is sleeping and rolls over the kite, breaking it.  The girl is very upset and shouts “Horrible Bear” then stomps home in anger.  The bear, have been awoken by the girl stomps down the mountain with a plan to get revenge.  When the girl accidentally pulls the ear off her stuffed rabbit, she realizes that she blamed the bear for an accident and decides to remedy the situation by apologizing.  When the bear arrives at the girl’s house, and she apologizes, all the horrible goes right out of the bear and he comes up with a new plan to be nice.  We discussed ways to handle our anger and sadness in appropriate ways, such as asking for a hug, taking deep breaths to calm down, walking away, and apologizing.  We also read Be Kind, about a girl who tries to figure out a way to help another student feel better after she spills her juice all over her dress and the other children laugh at her.  We shared ideas for ways to be kind to others.  We were introduced to Henrietta and Wolfgang, the hen and wolf puppets who live in our classroom.  They told us a bit about themselves and how we are each different in our very own ways and how to respectfully ask for or offer a hug and reply “yes, please” or “no, thank you.”

We discussed how people all over the world communicate by speaking different languages.  We speak English, but other people speak Spanish, French, German, Mandarin, etc., and some people speak using their hands in sign language.  We learned that some people cannot hear, so using their hands to speak is how they communicate. Rose introduced 5 new signs this week.  We learned yes, no, please, thank you, and sorry (you can access a video for each sign by clicking on the word).

Our first Spanish class with Zeanny was held Thursday morning.  We learned several songs in Spanish.  We sang a song about our names and introduced ourselves.  We sang cabeza (head), hombros (shoulders) , piernes (legs), pies (feet), and a color song.  Zeanny introduced colors with a colored beach ball and colorful scarves. We began to count and learn number names with two stories, one about perros (dogs) and one about animals.

Susan introduced the layers of the earth with 3 songs, 2 stories, and 1 activity.  We learned that the outermost part is called the crust, which is mostly rock covered by soil and water, then underneath the crust is the mantle, which is melted rock, then the outer core, which is liquid metal, then the inner core, which is solid iron.  Susan showed us a hard boiled egg, peeling away the shell, which represents the crust, then the soft mantle, then the yolk which represents the core.  We looked at the fold out book The Street Beneath My Feet and named all the different things we spied down under the sidewalk, including rocks, skeletons, artifacts, caves, insects, soil, magma, etc.

Friday students did a sink and float experiment. They tested lots of different items made of different materials.  We recorded which items sink and which float and classified them by what material they are; wood, metal, glass, plastic, rubber, or other.  We observed that all wooden things float, and all metal and glass things sink unless they are filled with air or curved like a boat, but will sink once filled with water.

We celebrated our first 6th birthday of the year on Friday! The birthday girl was super excited to share her monster ring and fall leaf cupcakes with her friends. She held the globe while she orbited the candle sun six times while we all listed the seasons and counted the years since her birth. We then serenaded her with the Birthday song and she blew out the candle. Happy Birthday 6 year old!