Sunnybrook Montessori School

With the apple tree in full bloom, the sun shining down, and the breezes blowing, outside was a glorious place to be.  There was a lot of running, hauling, digging, mixing, insect hunting, bouncing, biking, and imagining.Mondays artists learned about Henri Matisse, particularly his later years when he was too ill to paint and began to observe the natural world around him, imagine, plan, create, cut, and position painted paper shapes.  We were introduced to drawing with scissors in the story by the same title.  We then went off to create our own cut out art, which were titled “LOVE,” “HIKING WITH MOM AND OUR DOG,” “FLOWER FIELD,” “PAINT,” “THE OCEAN,” “TANGLED UP SEAWEED,” “FROGGY ON A LILY PAD CATCHING FLIES,” “SQUARES,” “THE MARIANA TRENCH,” and “BIG FLOWERS AND LITTLE FLOWERS.”  Can you identify them?The art table was busy while the remainder of the children finished up their puffy animals.  They are all so wonderful, and we are excited to display them from the trees on the last day!  We also re-introduced self-portraits and the children began working carefully on their images of themselves.  It is always so fun to match the beginning of the year with the end of year self-portraits.Rehearsals for the end of year performance continued.  We practice a couple of songs during each group time to keep it from being too overwhelming, but next week will begin full scale practices outside where we will (weather permitting) perform.We pulled out the ribbons and did some ribbon dancing on Tuesday.On Wednesday we read a book sent in by the Armstrong family about Memorial Day and discussed how it honors those in the military who died in service.  We discussed what some Memorial Day traditions might be, including parades, spending time with families, and having barbecues or picnics.  Children who have family members who serve or did serve in the military shared who they knew and which branch of the military they served in (if they knew).  The Armstrongs also sent in some fun USA themed puzzles which the children loved coloring.We read about frogs and toads, and learned about the differences.  We read that frogs have long back legs for hopping and swimming, while toads have short legs.  We read that frogs have smooth, wet skin, while toads have bumpy drier skin.  We read that male frogs make long, loud sounds, while toads have quieter, shorter calls.  We also read that frogs lay eggs in clumps, while toads lay eggs in strands.  We continue to watch our wood frog tadpoles, which are getting bigger every day.  We are hoping to have tadpoles with legs before school is out!We celebrated a fifth birthday on Thursday.  The birthday girl passed out red and blue frosted cupcakes before taking the globe for her trips around the sun.  She told us that she was born in the spring in the month of May five years ago, then quickly orbited the candle while we named the seasons and counted her years.  We all laughed when the globe dropped on the table, pushing the candle, which blew out the flame.  We then re-lit it so she could blow it out herself after singing Happy Birthday.  Happy Birthday, Birthday girl!!We had a small group on Friday, so we pulled out the instruments.  We were excited to try two new instruments donated for the yard sale that we pulled out – a steel drum and large gourd thumb piano.  We also pulled out the big drum.  The children took turns choosing and playing the instruments, then we learned about sound waves when we put felt balls on the big drum.  We tapped it lightly and the balls bounced.  When we played it harder they went flying up in the air.  The children had a LOT of fun doing that over and over and over and over . . .

The apple tree is blossoming, and green leaves are providing a shade cover on the sunny spring days.  The children have been finding all types of creepy crawlies, playing chase, digging out a large rock, creating mud, throwing rubber discs, hopping on hoppy balls, and constructing with the large blocks.The rain kept us in on Tuesday, so we did some fun movement songs, then took out some rainy day activities.Jackson Pollock, the artist famous for his enormous drip and splatter paintings, was introduced on Monday.  We read the story Action Jackson and watched a video of Jackson dribbling house paint onto large canvasses, just as described in the story.   We then got our own large canvasses, donned T-shirt smocks, and got down to creating our very own dribble and splatter paintings.At the art table, the students worked on finishing up props for our performance and creating puffy animals for the last day art show.  After deciding on an animal to make, the children worked very carefully drawing, coloring, cutting out, stapling together, and stuffing their animals.The final animal class, reptiles, was introduced.  We read About Reptiles and did our animal class sort.  Each student was given two animals, then they decided, based on the characteristics, which animal class it belongs to – mammal, bird, fish, insect, arachnid, reptile, or amphibian.  We learned that amphibians have moist, smooth skin, live partially in water and on land, go through metamorphosis, and can breathe and absorb water through their skin.  We learned that frogs, toads, salamanders, and newts are amphibians.  We focused first on frogs, and read several books about frogs, both informational and fiction stories.  We listened to the calls of four frogs – a wood frog, spring peepers, a gray tree frog, and an American bullfrog.  We celebrated a fourth birthday on Tuesday. Princess Elsa wore her new birthday dress and brought tasty strawberry topped cookies. We listed the seasons and counted the years as she walked the Earth around the sun, then we sang Happy Birthday before she blew out the candle. Happy Birthday newest four year old!For Spanish with Zeanny we sang all our body part, color, and family songs, then she introduced a fun Mexican game called lotteria.  The children paired up and were each given a board and a small bowl of pebbles or glass rocks to use as markers.  Zeanny showed a picture card and read the title of each one, and the children searched their boards for the picture, placing a rock over the picture if found.  The first team to cover their whole board won the game.  The children had a lot of fun searching for and marking the pictures.The Armstrong family sent in a tornado bottle and a National Geographic book titled Storms.  We read the book and learned all about different types of storms, and the children enjoyed watching and trying out the tornado in a bottle.We continued to practice our songs for the last day.  The children all have props now, and they practiced their roles while we all tried to remember to sing loudly so the audience could hear us.

On Thursday Tigger came with Andrea and AO from Believe in Books for their final visit.  We enjoyed the story AO read about Tigger, who was always so bouncy that he sometimes created trouble without thinking, so his friends came up with a plan and made a bouncer for him so he could bounce as much as he wants without knocking over things in his path.  The children said their Hello’s to Tigger with waves and hugs, then selected from 5 book options.For Friday science we read Switch On, Switch Off, and learned about electrical circuits.  We then worked as a group to select and create some circuits using Snap Circuits kits.  First we made a circuit that we could turn on and off that made some alarm and laser sounds.  We then made a circuit that launched a fan up into the air.  We also made a circuit that lit up different lights.  Some students went off to do work, while others remained, wanting to make more and more circuits.  They selected one that we hooked to the ipod and the lights danced to the music, though we couldn’t figure out why the speaker wasn’t playing the music.  They also selected some to create energy using a crank and then a windmill, though we were unable to make enough wind with our breaths to actually register on the meter.

What a glorious week we had!  The long-awaited sunshine and summer temperatures made for a quick exit from the classroom and lots of outside time.  Leaf buds began to appear on the trees, changing bare branches to green.  The children had fun with balls, trucks, large blocks, stumps, buckets, and shovels.  A store was built in the corner of the playground where you could purchase anything you might need.  Trucks were busy travelling all around the yard.  Lots of sand was scooped and shoveled.  Stumps were tipped and rolled.  A ramp was built using stumps and the balance beam with the intention of climbing the tree, but it quickly became a balancing challenge which most of the children conquered.David Hockney, an English artist, was introduced for his more recent works of art, which are composed of brightly colored landscapes on multiple canvasses, typically featuring forests of trees.  We viewed a short video introduction to Hockney and looked at some pictures of his work, then we created our own landscapes on multiple canvasses. The children each selected two to four pieces of paper, which we taped together.  They then planned their pictures and used pastels to create their landscapes.The final library trip was Monday while younger children from the community visited for the last play date.  There were some new fun activities at the library, which kept the children thoroughly engaged.The art table was busy with students finishing up their Out the Window pictures, Mother’s Day gifts, and props for our last day presentation.The sensory table was filled with water, and the children enjoyed pouring, mixing, scooping, and squirting.Zeanny continued to focus on the family, colors, and body parts.  We sang our body parts and colors songs.  She read a story about the family, and we sang the family song.  For our game this week she brought a poster with a monster family.  Zeanny asked each child to use a chosen color to draw a named number of a particular body part, for example, tres azul ohos (3 blue eyes).We read about snakes and played some snake games.  We jumped over the wiggling jump-rope snake, being careful to not get eaten.  We then played snake in the grass, a game of tag where the taggers have to slither like snakes.  We used two rugs with 3 snake taggers each, and the remaining students were the mice and other prey that were eaten by the snakes.The wood frog tadpoles Tammy brought in last week hatched over the weekend and have already started to grow. We noticed that they had external gills, and read that they will soon be covered. We will keep a close eye on them to see how they grow and change over the next four weeks.Several weeks ago we had a discussion about trees, their role in our lives, where paper comes from, and conserving paper.  The children offered suggestions about how we could conserve paper and what steps we could take to save more trees.  Some of the suggestions we were able to implement immediately, such as making signs as reminders about only taking two paper towels, and remembering to use the whole paper rather than just scribbling and throwing it away.  Another suggestion was to plant more trees, so on Wednesday after we read A Tree is Nice, Trees Are Plants, and we pretended to be trees with Gus while reading Gus is a Tree, we were introduced to our very own trees, which we received from the NH Cooperative Extension Service.  Each child was given a tree of their very own to take home and plant.On Thursday morning we read about lizards and watched a short clip from the BBC series Life (available on Netflix) Episode 2 – Reptiles and Amphibians.  We watched rain coming down on a dwarf gecko, which floats on water because it is so small and light, but the raindrops in comparison are so big that they create giant waves.  We then watched a clip about the panther chameleon, which stealthily climbs through the jungle trees hunting insects with its’ long sticky tongue.  The students were each given “lizard tongues.” They then found their name tags in the classroom where they used their tongues to hunt for insects.  They had a lot of fun shooting out their tongues and catching their prey.For science on Friday we read Because of an Acorn and Be a Friend to Trees, sharing our thoughts and knowledge of trees.  We then learned how wood is turned into paper by watching two videos, How do they turn wood into paper? and How is Paper Made?   We then got busy making our very own paper.  The children took paper pulp, paper scraps, and water, and added it all to a blender.  After chopping it into pulp in the blender, they poured their paper into a paper frame mold, placed it on a piece of newsprint, rolled it flat with a rolling pin, and left it to dry.  We are anxious to see the finished products next week!