Sunnybrook Montessori School

It was a bittersweet week, saying goodbye and anticipating summer break.  We were lucky to have beautiful weather so we could spend a lot of time outside playing soccer, chasing friends, playing toss, digging in the sand box and garden, hunting caterpillars, riding bikes, and playing basketball. All day students enjoyed daily picnics outside under the apple tree, chatting and enjoying the warm weather and spring breezes while enjoying our lunches.
Monday students had a special visitor in the morning. The infamous Spikey the guinea pig, who has been featured in many stories and works of art, made an appearance. The children enjoyed patting her and taking turns carefully holding her before she returned to her crate and heading back home.
For art the children used rulers to draw lines across foam core boards with pastels, then filled in the spaces with watercolor paints to make colorful geometric designs.
They then took turns dropping food coloring in vinegar, then pouring it over baking soda and dish soap to make a color changing foaming volcano.  It was so much fun to watch!
On Tuesday we celebrated our final fifth birthday.  We all counted as the birthday boy walked the globe around the candle sun, listing the seasons as he orbited around.  After singing “Happy Birthday” and blowing out his candle, he was excited to share gingerbread children to decorate with colored frosting and sprinkles.  Happy birthday to the soon to be five-year old!
We were anxious to get outside after the birthday celebration so we could do some fun outdoor activities.  Susan brought some weighted Styrofoam penguin eggs that she made and the children tried very hard to walk the eggs around on their feet and transfer them from one set of feet to another, just as the emperor penguins do.  We discovered how tricky it was to hold the eggs up on our toes and shuffle around without dropping them.  We discovered how very challenging it is!
The Monday children loved their foaming volcano so much that they requested we do it again with everyone, so the children who were interested each took a turn dumping the vinegar in the jar and watching the colored foam bubble up.
We brought out the water table to enjoy in the nice hot weather, which accidentally and then purposely turned into a water soaking each other game, so there were lots of wet little bodies by the end of recess.
On our final day, the children got busy putting away, cleaning, breaking down, packing up, scrubbing, sorting, and washing all around the classroom.  We read some fun stories and gave goodbye hugs, then went outside to run and play for the last time for the year with our friends.
The end of year performance, graduation, and pot luck was a huge success.  The children did an amazing job keeping their singing volume up through all 15 songs, and the Friday students shared their favorite facts about their continents.  Thank you so much to all the families for your support and trust.  We are so grateful to have had the wonderful opportunity to know you all and spend our days with your children.  We will miss our friends that are moving on, but wish you all the best!  Have a wonderful summer.  We will see many of you in the fall, and hope for visits from those heading to first grade and kindergarten.

We had some rain that kept us inside Tuesday, but then the summer weather finally returned for a few days and we enjoyed it to the fullest!  Caterpillar hunts continued, games of tag commenced, and we made some giant bubbles with homemade bubble solution and bubble wands.  We even enjoyed an outdoor picnic on Thursday for lunch.
For art, the children were introduced to the artist Jackson Pollock, who is famous for his drip and splatter paintings.  The children had a most wonderful time creating their own Pollockesque works of art, which we will display on the last day.  They are quite colorful and fun and making them was even more so!
At the art-table we also made painted paper strip collages using old unclaimed paintings cut into pieces, which the children glued onto paper in their own designs.
We spent some time Tuesday morning as a group drawing self-portraits, family portraits, and pictures of our friends for individual books that each child will receive as a memento.
We brought out beads for friendship bracelets on Thursday, and many children created bracelets for their friends as we begin to say goodbye.
Much of our group times were occupied with practicing for our last day presentation.  The children were very patient while the Friday students introduced each continent and we sang the two songs for each.  This is the most extensive program we have taken on, with 15 songs in total!  They truly have worked hard to prepare.
Friday students had “the best day ever” making slime for science with glue, glitter, food coloring, and liquid starch.  Some of the students chose to mix it and be done, while others played with it all day long.  There was pink glitter slime, dark green glitter slime, light blue slime, white slime with silver glitter, purple glitter slime, and light green slime.  (I have heard that it if gets into the carpet, vinegar will dissolve it, though I have not attempted this myself).

Caterpillar catchers were on the hunt, scouring every tree trunk, log, table, fence post, and friend for the fourteen legged creepy crawlers.  Trillions of tent moth caterpillars, as estimated by the sharp-eyed collectors, were discovered and well cared for.
Artists were at work on various projects, including self-portraits, finishing up thank-yous for Wozz, and other writing and drawing work.
The new blocks have been very popular as we wrap up the year.  The children have begun experimenting with and expanding their construction, creating villages of houses, complex roadways, and ramps for rolling cylinders down.  They have been collaborating and cooperating to build their structures, then using them to play dramatic and cooperative games and scenarios, proposing and coming to agreements about how to arrange things, what purposes they serve, how to adjust their structures to better meet their goals, and making up various play scenarios.  They have listened and compromised and negotiated.  It is so fulfilling to see them implementing the social, emotional, cognitive, physical, exploratory, and creative skills they have been learning and practicing throughout the year.
At the children’s request, we started a short study of Antarctica, the seventh and final continent.  We asked some questions, proposed some hypotheses, and completed some experiments.  We began by discussing the climate and landscape in Antarctica.  We learned that the continent around the south pole is covered in ice and snow and does not house any countries.  Susan introduced us to glaciers and what happens when pieces break off into the ocean, which is called calving.  We asked some questions: What happens to water when it gets very cold?  What kind of water are glaciers made of?  What kind of water is sea ice made of?  How are they different and the same?  What happens when glaciers calve?  What happens to ice bergs and sea ice as it melts?  We came to some conclusions based on what we know, and proposed some hypotheses, then we experimented.  We learned that glaciers form on land from snow that has fallen and compacted over millions of years, so we know it is made of fresh water.  We know that oceans are salty, so sea ice is frozen salt water.  We hypothesized that water would get bigger when it froze.  We hypothesized that the ice would melt in the ocean water.  We hypothesized that the ice would sink and that it would float.  So we decided to do some experiments to test our hypotheses.  We started by making some sea water to freeze.  The children took turns pouring water into flat pans, adding salt, and dripping in blue food coloring.  We also took turns helping to make ice bergs by pouring fresh water into paper cups and dropping in green food coloring.  We then put them in the freezer overnight.
The following day the early students mixed up some ocean water by measuring out cups of water and stirring in teaspoonfuls of salt.  During morning-meeting we took out the frozen sea ice and ice bergs and observed what happened when they were placed in our ocean water.  We marked the water line when the sea ice was added, then observed what happened when we added the ice bergs.  The children observed that the sea ice melted much faster than the ice bergs.  They observed that the sea ice floated with the top of the ice aligning with the top of the water, while the ice bergs floated with a small portion above the water line, and a larger portion below the water line.  We observed that when we added the ice bergs, the water line rose.  At the end of the morning the ice bergs and sea ice were all melted.  So we discovered that all of our hypotheses were accurate – the ice did melt in the water, it both sank and floated, and the water did expand when it froze.  During circle-time we watched a video clip of a glacier calving.  It was hard to get the proper perspective of their truly enormous size, but it was neat to watch the giant chunks of ice break off and plunge into the water then shoot back up.
We also read all about emperor penguins, and learned all kinds of things about them.  Did you know that they are the largest penguins, about the size of a five-year old child, at 4 feet tall?  Did you know that the father penguins carry the eggs on their feet for two whole months, without eating, while the mother penguin goes to sea to feed, finally returning weeks after the chick hatches.  We watched a video clip of mother penguins locating their mates and chicks by calling to them, which you can watch here.  We also watched a clip of penguins swimming and jumping out the water, and how they do that, which you can watch here.  We then did an experiment to understand how penguins stay warm in the harsh Antarctic temperatures.  We put on a “blubber” mitten and dunked our blubber mitten and our bare hands in ice water to see which got cold faster (which would have been much more effective if our mitten didn’t leak, but it was still semi effective).
Friday students continued to work on their continent presentations for the final day performance, and worked together to build a very cool roadway.

BELIEVE THERE IS GOOD IN THE WORLD 

T-Shirt Fundraiser

Courtney Vashaw and Jessie Lanham are donating proceeds from the sales of BE THE GOOD T-shirts to the Sunnybrook Montessori School Scholarship fund.  T-shirts range in size from youth x-small (4/5) to Adult x-large.  They are currently available for $15 each at the Root Seller in Lancaster.

The Story Behind BE THE GOOD Shirts

When you are diagnosed with cancer, there is a great deal about the world that can seem dark and daunting. But then something happens to give you hope.

When I was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma, a rare and aggressive soft tissue cancer, in the spring of 2015, my senior students at Profile School astounded the world when they gave up their senior trip and donated their class treasury toward my cancer fight. Soon thereafter, the sophomore Class of 2017, which was advised by my wife, followed their lead and began selling Be The Good shirts. Profits helped defray the costs of my trips to New York for treatment, and I was able to donate the extra funds back into the community.  

On my treatment days, I often wore a Be The Good shirt as a way to bolster my spirits and to remind myself that even on my worst days, I could still contribute to the world through small acts of kindness. Soon my radiation team all had their own Be The Good shirts. The shirts quickly sold out many times times over, and it meant the world to me to see them around the community and being worn by friends around the world. The message was spreading!

In the winter of 2017, the world seemed to be in a pretty dark place. The stress and sadness around me was palpable. That’s how we knew it was time to bring the shirts back and use the proceeds to help organizations that share our passion for doing good. We are proud to say that, because of these shirts, thousands of dollars have gone back into the community for individuals experiencing traumatic illnesses, organizations that support cancer patients, and other amazing causes that support social justice, education, the arts, and community improvement.

Sunnybrook Montessori School is, without question, one of the bright “good” (great!) spots in our world, and I’m often reminded that if I hadn’t had cancer, my son wouldn’t have had the chance to go here. Strange how things work out. In some ways, I couldn’t be luckier.

That’s why we are committed to using the Be The Good shirts to raise money for programming and scholarships to Sunnybrook. All proceeds from the sale of each shirt will be donated back to Sunnybrook. This little school is going above and beyond to Be The Good itself and help our children learn how to do the same.

For more information, or to order a shirt in a size that isn’t available today, please contact Courtney Vashaw at [email protected] or 603-616-8157.