Sunnybrook Montessori School

Valentine’s week brought some stories about friendship, love, and making Valentines for others. Students decorated Valentine mailbags for our party and the final students finished up their I love you sign language stuffed hands with Rose.

During sign language Rose went through the alphabet, showing the signs for mammals that began with each letter. She read and signed the Piggy and Gerald story A Big Guy Took My Ball.

We grated soap and unrolled and tore up rolls of toilet paper then added water to make clean mud, a mushy mixture that we could form and mold and mash.

Makenna continued our discussion about negative and positive self talk. She introduced having a conversation with a friend with Wolfgang and Henrietta, then transferred that into having a conversation with oneself. She helped the children use the talking bubbles to record how they could change the negative thoughts in their heads to positive thoughts, then she read the story Catching Thoughts by Bonnie Clark.

Our Valentine’s Day celebration offered some fun with the parachute, Valentine stories, a Valentine’s action game, Valentine card making, friendship bracelet making, heart shaped crayon making using old broken crayons, and Valentine writing work, including a maze, word search, color by number and color by sight word activities. Children took turns delivering their Valentine cards into everyone’s mailbags. We finished off our morning by enjoying all the tasty treats families brought, including strawberry frosting covered cupcakes, oatmeal raisin cookies, homemade animal crackers, heart shaped muffins, fruit, vegetables, pretzels, and veggies with dip.

The big snowstorm last week left a lot of snow that we used to build snow forts (which were all quickly demolished), snowmen, our sledding hill, snow trails, and snow pies, cakes, and soups.

Kindergarten students practiced their reading individually with books, and as a group with letters from Lyn. They chose a word or letter and circled it in the note each time it appeared. There were a LOT of a’s! They were each given six or seven words and tasked with finding the match, then reading through their words and using them to build a sentence, writing new words as needed to create what they wanted to say. On Valentine’s Day they did a dice addition sheet, rolling the die twice, coloring that number hearts, then recording their equation.

During Friday science we had fun with a citrus taste test. We tried a mandarin, clementine, orange, tangerine, lemon, lime, grapefruit, and Mineola. Some of the children opted out of tasting and some couldn’t wait to taste them all, and were excited to finish off the leftovers. They observed some similarities and differences in the shapes and colors and tastes. Most preferred the sweeter fruits, but some loved the lemon, lime, and grapefruit most.

The Friday afternoon group took a snowshoeing trip with Michelle and Makenna out to the field behind school and frolicked in the snow, taste testing the fresh layer and building snowmen.

For art Monday students who were interested did body tracings on large paper then colored them in to match themselves.

During sign language with Rose we reviewed the alphabet and took turns finding alphabet signs in the ASL alphabet caterpillar on the wall. Rose read and signed the Piggy and Gerald story Can I Play, Too? by Mo Willems, which is an all-time favorite and brought lots of laughs. Upon request we sang and signed The Green Grass Grows All Around.

Makenna introduced self talk. She demonstrated and invited the children to do some superhero stretches with her, then introduced negative (shadow) talk and positive (superhero) talk. She asked the children ways that they can change negative/shadow talk to positive/superhero talk, and the children shared some suggestions, such as “I can do it!” and “I will give it a try!” We then did some more superhero stretches, bending over then moving up into a flying stance, crouching down then exploding up big like the Hulk, and pulling back a bow and arrow like Falcon.

We continued our study of mammals, who are covered in hair, including fur or wool. We read The Hat by Jan Brett, about the animals who take all the woolen clothes off the line and use them as hats. The children shared that wool comes from sheep, so we watched short videos of a sheep being shorn, the wool being trimmed, then carded, then spun into yarn.

Children used spray bottles filled with colored water to decorate the snow.

We took turns in the body socks to stretch and push and move, enjoying the resistance.

Kindergarten students did some surveying. They wrote down their two favorite foods, then surveyed all the children in the classroom about which of the two items they each preferred. They then added up the responses to see the results. We revisited the NOUN, which is a person, place, or thing – so something you can touch (mostly), and we introduced the VERB, which is something that you do. We went outside to get familiar with verbs. The children took turns selecting a verb from the stack and then moving in that way. They walked, ran, hopped, skipped, moseyd, crawled, etc. all over the playground.

Artists made segmented hearts by tracing or drawing a heart then placing strips of tape across it. They painted or colored in the sections then pulled the tape off, leaving behind blank lines and colored spaces.

The children had fun finding mammals with Rose. She made a mammal sign and the children took turns pointing to it with her pointer stick. Piggy and Gerald puppets helped tell the Piggy and Gerald story, My New Friend is so Fun! Rose then introduced a neat sign language art activity. She showed the sign for I love you with the thumb, pointer, and pinky fingers up, and the middle and ring finger down. She showed the children how to stuff a glove with polyester fill then sew down the two fingers then the bottom of the glove to make their own I love you stuffy.

Our group of students who are passionate about weapon play and war watched two videos of books about battle. The first was a wordless picture book set to music called Why? by Nikolai Popov and the second, Boy by Phil Cummings. We then had a short discussion about war, why people engage in war, and what the end goal is. They were well versed in the knowledge that wars occur because people have a disagreement, or some people are not treated well and a war my occur to help make things better in the long run and keep people safe and secure. They shared that we don’t want to hurt or kill anyone and that violence is never the answer, but sometimes people need protecting and hopefully peace can be negotiated.

Michelle and the children whipped up some soap foam for play in the sensory table. They had so much fun scooping, dumping, pushing, and coating their hands and arms.

There was an exceptionally high amount of restlessness, frustration, and energy this week, so we had lots of indoor physical activity when it was too cold to go out, and then spent as much time outside as possible. We had yarn ball battles in the small classroom, balloon toss and catch games, Dancing with koo koo kangaroo and the bucket drummers, and an obstacle course around the room with a trampoline, scooter boards, bean bag toss, bilibo spinning, crawling under tables, through tunnels, and in the long fabric sensory fish tunnel, through hoops, over river rock stepping stones, more spinning, and walking over a chair bridge. Round and round and round they went! Friday afternoon students went on a long snow shoe trek out in the meadow with Michelle and Makenna.

We returned to our drumming instruments this week and introduced musical notes. The children practiced counting and tapping rhythm sticks together to the count of four over and over. They learned that a quarter note is one count, a half note is held for two counts, and a whole note is held for four. We tried reading and playing some rhythms with our rhythm sticks, then took turns playing patterns on different percussion instruments for everyone to listen to and imitate.

Kindergarteners were busy this week! On Monday they went on a word search, looking for sight words taped around the room as they were called out, then finding, reading, and pointing them out. On Tuesday they chose a color then found the corresponding color name on the chalkboard using letter clues and sounding out skills, then recording the name next to the color. On Wednesday they chose to write Valentines to friends or family. They cut out heart shapes, added stickers, and wrote a message to someone they love. Thursday they were pirate teams. Each team had a treasure chest. One pirate would plunder the large treasure chest and fill their own, then go hide it. The teammate would then be given clues to locate it in the classroom. They would then bring it back and count out how many large silver coins, small silver coins, rings, and jewels they had, then write down and a solve the addition equation.

Friday students read some stories about POOP then watched two short videos about the digestive system before chewing up and digesting some crackers, thinking about all the parts it passes through before it comes out the other end. We took some crackers and banana and added some “saliva” and “chewed” it up with our fingers, then passed it down the esophagus into the stomach where it was combined with some stomach acid and mixed some more. It was then pushed through the intestines, which absorbed all the nutrients, before pooping out the rectum. We measured out some hoses that were the length of the small intestines (15 feet) and then a tube for the large intestine (5 feet) to measure out 20+ feet of intestines!

Mammals, mammals, everywhere!! Rose brought a large collection of stuffed mammals and the children either chose an animal by giving the sign, or having Rose show the sign of the animal they chose. Rose then read and signed the Piggy and Gerald story “Waiting is Not Easy” by Mo Willems. Piggy has a surprise for Gerald and he has to wait, and wait, and wait, and wait, which he finds is really not easy.

As we are in the thick of winter we have been talking about animals and what they do in winter. We discussed hibernation, migration, and adaption. The children shared that the challenges in winter are lack of food because plants are no longer growing and much of what remains is buried under snow so it is difficult for animals to find and eat. We discussed how animals stay warm in winter. The children said we stay warm in our houses with fires/heat and warm clothes for both inside and out, but animals don’t have heated homes so they need to stay warm in other ways. Some animals, like bears, will eat and eat and eat all fall and build up a layer of fat under their skin. Mammals are also covered in hair/fur/wool that helps to keep them warm. And some mammals hibernate, slowing their heartbeats down and curling up in burrows or dens where they can conserve their heat and energy. We took turns holding pieces of ice in our bare hands, then holding ice with a layer of insulation – fat, wool, fur, or feathers.

The children noticed some animal tracks outside the back fence, so we went to check them out. Their original guess was that they were deer tracks, but upon examination and some contemplation, we observed they were too close together and guessed that they were likely dog tracks. While exploring they observed some other tracks and made several guesses about what they might be, then we used deductive reasoning to guess that they were squirrel tracks, as they went to and from trees and followed the big feet in front, small feet in back pattern of squirrels. We decided to see if we could find some tracks down in the back field so took an impromptu field trip out back. Unfortunately we didn’t find any fresh tracks, but we had fun making a whole bunch of our own!!

The children love drumming, so we watched 4 videos of street drummers who use buckets and/or pots, pans, and random items to drum on. They LOVED the videos and got their groove on, dancing and moving, and drumming and banging along with Gordo, Damat, Dario Rossi, and the group of bucket drummers STICKSTOFF. We pulled out and tested a variety of items the students could tap on and everyone chose something to use for a bit of percussion time. It was too loud with EVERYONE drumming at the same time, so we cut that short, but left the items out for children to use one or two at a time. We have some pretty skilled drummers in our class with great rhythm and a good ear.

Kindergarten students chose a mammal to write about. They drew a picture of their chosen mammal and then added at least one detail about that mammal. They did some addition work, completing addition facts from 1 to 9. Working through an addition book of 9 pages of addition facts, with one+, two+, three+, all the way to 9 addition facts, they observed patterns and strengthened their understanding of working through addition problems. They were introduced to nouns as parts of a sentence. They learned that a noun is a person, place, or thing, were given multiple examples, listened to/read some sentences and identified the nouns, then went on a treasure hunt around the room to find nouns then sound out and write down the nouns they found. There was also a lot of reading going on! Those who are interested in keeping track of how many books or sight word lists they have read have started sticker charts so they can count up all their reading.

During science the children performed feats of strength, using their muscles to lift heavy objects, run in place, do push ups, yoga poses, squats, planks, and other muscle building exercises. They loved showing off all those they already know, then testing their abilities performing. We watched two videos about muscles, the first that highlighted the various skeletal muscles, and the second that described different types of muscle, why we need them and how they work, and how to keep them healthy.