Sunnybrook Montessori School

We were so grateful that the first week of spring was truly spring-like with sunny days bringing above freezing temperatures.  A soup shop was set up, selling concoctions such as chocolate peanut butter soup, and chocolate raspberry soup.  Games of Duck, Duck, Goose, Red Light, Green Light, and What Time Is It Mr. Fox? were played.  The sledding hill continued to be busy with sledders and snowboarders.  We dug out our drainage trench again, so the melting snow and ice had an outlet.  The spring water play is one of our favorite activities, so the afternoon students were able to enjoy scooping up shovelfuls of water and filling buckets with ice, snow, and muddy H2O during their afternoon trips out to enjoy the sun and warmth.For Monday art we did some weaving, a rather tricky concept.  Using fish shapes, the children selected fancy papers and carefully wove them through slits in the fish to create checkerboard patterns.  It took some good finger-work, strategizing, and focus to get them properly woven.  It was a bit of a challenge, but everyone found success!Last week the children voted and decided to change dramatic play to an aquarium.  We had a discussion on Tuesday morning about what happens at an aquarium.  Children who have visited aquariums shared that their experiences involved walking around and looking at the animals, and some had the chance to experience a touch tank.  After hearing about their experiences, everyone decided to make it more interactive and turn it into an ocean where we could swim, snorkel, scuba dive, submerge in shark tanks, and dive down in a submarine.  They brainstormed all sorts of things that we would need to include and immediately got busy making various sea creatures, including spiny sea stars, jellyfish, an octopus, a sea turtle, hanging kelp, ocean murals, and of course a yellow submarine to go along with the song.  Everyone was busy and excited to set it up.For Spanish on Tuesday Zeanny concluded our second session with another cooking activity.  This time we made cajetas with crushed graham crackers, which we mixed with sweetened condensed milk and rolled in chocolate sprinkles.  Before we got to the crushing, mixing, scooping, and rolling, Zeanny told us the story of The Chocolate Tree, one of my very favorite Zeanny stories.  Ask your child to share it with you if they have not already!  Who knew that there really is such a thing as a chocolate tree that grows chocolate.  They can tell you all about how Zeanny did not listen to her abuelita and ate the chocolate even after being told, “No lo comas!” (Don’t eat it!), and what happened.We read the book Ocean Sunlight by Molly Bang, about how the sun gives light to all the billions of billions of billions of phytoplankton in the seas that feed the sealife in all the oceans.  We discussed food chains and how every living thing depends on plants, even if they eat other animals, to sustain life.  We are loving our phytoplankton song about the food chain.  By April the children will likely be able to sing it for you at home!

Seahorses, which are a type of fish, were introduced.  We read several stories about seahorses and learned that they have heads shaped like horses, prehensile tales like monkeys, hard outer skin like grasshoppers, pouches like kangaroos, camouflaging skin and independently moving eyes like chameleons.  We also learned that the father seahorses are the ones that give birth to the babies after the mothers deposit the eggs into their pouches, where they remain until they are born – all 300 at a time!We did some role playing and were introduced to the word MISUNDERSTANDING.  We are working on perspective taking, which research by Larry Aber of New York University has demonstrated has the most impact on a child’s ability to step back from a situation to accurately assess a situation and handle conflict, particularly for those who see any offense as deliberately hostile.  We will continue to work on perspective taking, including taking a step back and reading a situation then deciding how to proceed.During music time with Susan we had fun singing the fish song and sharing what our wish would be if we were a fish.  We sang My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean and every time we sang a word that began with /B/ we went up or down.  We took turns holding and ringing bells, and putting them in order from highest to lowest.  It was VERY tricky!  Everyone got a turn with a bell and some of the children were right on with identifying higher and lower tones.For Friday science we watched a short video about a submarine that submerged down through the zones, and as they traveled down they described the zones and what they saw there.  We learned about the sunlight zone, twilight zone, midnight zone, the abyss, and the hadal zone.  We learned that the sunlight zone is where photosynthesis takes place, and although it is only a very small portion of the ocean, it is where the majority of ocean-life lives.  We discussed water pressure, and how dark and cold it is the further down in the ocean you go.  Some of the children took turns laying on top of each other to see how the pressure builds when there is more weight on top of you, and we discussed how heavy a bucket of water is, so all that water pressing down is heavy!  We then constructed our own display of the zones and each of the children drew, colored, cut out, labeled, and taped up a fish in it’s proper zone.

Winter weather was in full force, bringing lots of snow for snowmen, snowballs, shoveling, and sledding.  We are staying strong wading through the many inches of white flakes.  After our Wednesday snow day we really enjoyed all of the new snowfall.For Monday art we introduced the artist Hokusai, and his famous wood block print “The Great Wave off Kanagawa.”  We used foam trays to “carve” out pictures using crayons, by making indentations in the foam.  We pressed our designs onto ink pads then printed them onto our papers.  Some of us layered our prints, as Hokusai did, to add detail and layers of color.We continued our study of fish with the introduction of sharks.  We learned that sharks do not have bones, but a flexible skeleton of cartilage.  Some sharks have 5 rows of teeth, and may go through thousands of teeth in a lifetime.  Unlike human teeth, shark teeth will be replaced repeatedly as they fall out.  We read that most sharks are carnivorous, but some eat only plankton.  We learned the Phytoplankton song, a favorite for the past several years, which teaches about an ocean food chain.We watched a short video of The Rainbow Fish story and discussed how lonely Rainbow fish was when he was unkind and treated the other fish like he was better than them because of his sparkly scales, and how he made friends and felt much happier when he shared his scales.  At the art table the children used their fingers to make fingerprint scales on their very own rainbow fish.

The Armstrong family sent in a fun story and activity for St. Patrick’s Day.  We read How to Catch a Leprechaun about a leprechaun that visits all the houses and causes mischief while avoiding all the tricky traps set by the children attempting to capture him.  Afterwards many children enjoyed using the little plastic pencil shaped tools to scrape the green off the shamrocks to create pictures.  Some children even worked on creating their very own tricky leprechaun traps.We played shark cage, a cooperative version of musical chairs.  We created a large tape rectangle on the floor, then played music while the children swam around the rectangle.  When the music stopped, they made sure that there was room inside the shark cage for everyone.  We gradually made the tape cage smaller and smaller as children left to wash hands, until only two students were left to fit into the tiny cage.A fourth birthday was celebrated on Thursday with delicious peanut butter cookies.  The birthday boy passed out the cookies while everyone finished washing hands and setting up snacks.  He showed us with his fingers that he is four years old, then proudly walked the globe around the candle sun while we named the seasons and counted the four years since his birth.  Happy birthday four-year old!We had some special visitors from Believe in Books. Andrea and AO brought the Cat in the Hat with them in honor or Dr. Seuss’ birthday. AO read the Dr. Seuss story What Was I Scared of? We then took turns hugging, high fiving, or waving to the Cat in the Hat before picking our very own Dr. Seuss book to take home.

Sled dogs teamed up to pull sleds around the yard after reading about the Iditarod, which is currently in progress from Anchorage to Nome.  Snow boarders took turns racing down the snow hill.  Fresh snow was shoveled away and rolled up into serum snowballs to be pulled on sleds to the diphtheria victims in Nome.The Monday students practiced their very careful cutting skills slowly maneuvering their scissors around fish shapes, which they then decorated with a variety of collage items.  They created some very colorful and creative fish.  Students continued to cut and collage fish throughout the week, creating a large gallery display.While potential students and families visited on Monday, the students took their monthly field trip to the library with Susan and Tammy, where they enjoyed some of their usual library activities.We read about the serum relay that took place in Alaska in 1925 after some children in Nome were diagnosed with diphtheria, and serum had to be brought from Anchorage to treat them and prevent the spread of the disease.  A sled dog relay was set up through radio communication, and a series of mushers and their dogs ran through blizzards and below 40 degree temperatures both night and day to ensure it was delivered quickly.  We read the stories of Balto and Togo, two of the most heroic lead dogs that participated.  This serum relay was the origin of the Iditarod, which is currently taking place with over sixty mushers and their dog teams.  We checked the race standings daily, and were introduced to the top ranking participants each day, as well as the Berrington twins, Kristy and Anna.  The first few racers are anticipated to finish early next week.  The typical finish times over the past several years have been just over 8 days, so we will continue to track the Iditarod progress through next week.For Spanish with Zeanny we continued to work on colors and body parts.  The children were split into three groups and each child was given a colored pastel.  Each group had a piece of paper, and when zeanny named a color, a number, and a body part, the child with that color drew that many of the given body part.  When their crazy monsters were completed, we looked at them to see if they were all exactly the same or if they were different.  She read the Eric Carle story De La Cabeza a los pies (From Head to Toe), and the children acted it out.Our study of fish was introduced with the books About Fish, Fabulous Fishes, and Big Al.  We discussed the characteristics of fish, including living in water, breathing with gills, being covered with scales, having fins, and laying eggs.  We did an animal sort.  Each student was handed an animal, which they identified as either an insect, arachnid, bird, mammal, or fish. Many fish activities were introduced, including fish in the water table, a fishing game, and fish math.We read the story of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, and discussed disappointments and handling disappointment by acknowledging it, feeling and expressing it in an appropriate way, and moving on.

During music with Susan we continued to listen to high, middle, and low notes and move our bodies up high, in the middle, and down low.  The children took turns striking the high, middle, and low notes.  She then introduced a scale with the bells.  The children played their bells in a scale from high to low and low to high, and then played chords when Susan said their bell number.We continued our study of liquids and solids with a sink and float experiment on Friday.  Children took turns selecting items, making a hypothesis about whether they would sink or float, then testing their hypothesis.  At the end, we took out the floating items first, and sorted them by the material they were constructed from.  We observed that all the wooden items, and most of the plastic items floated.  We had one rubber item that was floating and determined it was because it had air trapped inside.  There was also a metal item that floated, which did so because it was bowl shaped.  When it was filled with water, it sank to the bottom with all the other metal items.

A warm front briefly brought some spring-like weather.  We enjoyed building snowmen and giant snowballs.  On Wednesday it was warmer outside than in, so we took off jackets and got to work chopping out a channel to drain all the melted snow and ice.  The children loved scooping out slush, water, and ice chunks, and floating sticks down the flowing river.  The tunnel was filled with melted snow as well, and they had a great time scooping it out and dumping it down the fence, while attempting to stay dry. As cold weather returned the playground became quite slippery, so we carefully navigated our way around.Tuesday was a rainy day, so we constructed an obstacle course, which went through a couple of changes.  The children had fun navigating all the obstacles, going up, over, under, and through. Hopping, jumping, balancing, and crawling. To end the indoor morning we took out the ribbons and did a little ribbon dancing.For art on Monday we introduced the Japanese art of suminagashi, aka paper marbling.  We showed examples of marbled paper, then got to work creating our own.  The children carefully squeezed drops of dye onto water, then swirled it around to create patterns.  They carefully set their papers on top of the dye, then slowly lifted them off when they had absorbed the ink.  They created some beautiful swirly patterns.The children painted a large US Postal collection box, then got busy mailing letters to all their friends.
We read several stories about taking on challenges and introduced the term determination.  We read a true story about Emanuel Ofasu Yeboah, a man born in Ghana with only one working leg who would hop to school every day, until at 13 years old, he left home to earn money to support his family.  He eventually decided to bike across Ghana to raise awareness about disabilities.  We tried hopping all around the classroom on one leg and quickly realized how challenging it is! This link will take you to a 5 minute video of Emanuel sharing his story.  We also read about basketball player Michael Jordan, who at 9 years old decided that he wanted to someday play basketball in the Olympics, and how he worked to accomplish that dream.  We also read about a boy named Jabari, who wanted to climb up and dive off the diving board at the pool.  He was scared, but with his father’s support, he built up courage and finally did it.The story of The Mitten was introduced last week, and the children loved performing it, so we continued performing it throughout the week, taking turns being Baba, Nicki, and the various animals who crawl into the mitten.We took some time to write thank you cards for postman Tim to thank him for taking time to give us a tour of the mailroom last week.For Spanish Zeanny played some color and size games with us.  We stood up very big “grande” and shrunk down very small “pequeña.”  We sang the color song and used our color vocabulary to match items to their color words.We celebrated the most recent fifth birthday with pink and purple frosted chocolate cupcakes.  The birthday girl walked the globe around the sun while we all counted the years and listed the seasons as she grew from an infant to a five-year-old.  Happy fifth birthday!For music Susan played high notes and low notes and notes in between while we moved up or down or in the middle to match the pitch of the notes.  When she played high notes, we stood up high.  When played low notes, we scrunched down low.  When she played middle notes, we crouched with our hands on our knees.  When she played the scale, we slowly moved up or down with the rising and falling of the notes.  She also played the notes slowly and quickly, and we attempted to move accordingly.On Friday our science study of the states of matter continued.  We began to discuss liquids.  We became molecules in matter and moved far, far apart to become a gas, then moved closer together to become a liquid, then smooshed as closely together as we could to become a solid.  We then gathered together and watched as different liquids were poured into a tall glass cylinder.  We watched how they flowed and observed that some flowed much more slowly than others.  We poured the more dense liquids in first.  We observed that as we poured liquids that were less dense, they poured more quickly and seemed “lighter.”  The various liquids formed layers that floated on each other, rather than mixing together.On Tuesday afternoon we had a goodbye party for Tricia with some special treats and the children all gave her cards they made.  We said our official goodbyes throughout the week, and our final goodbye on Friday, her last day at Sunnybrook.  We will miss her dearly and wish her well on her new life adventures!