Sunnybrook Montessori School

The first snow of the season was covering the ground when we arrived on Monday.  The children were excited to build miniature snowmen, make snow angels, and have snow ball fights.  The truck drivers found that the snow accumulated on their tires so they had to keep stopping and chipping it off to maintain driving safety.  We caught some flakes on our mittens so we could examine the beautiful little crystals.  We were grateful that it stuck around for the week so everyone could scoop up and play with the cold white fluff.
For art we read the story Home, by Carson Ellis, and admired all the various types of houses, real and make believe, where people and creatures might live, including apartments, castles, caves, moon homes, and underwater homes.  The favorite was the space home, and the children loved sharing which part they would claim for their own.  Each student used black permanent marker to draw an outline of their own home on a piece of mat board, color it in with pastels, then paint over it with water color paints, creating some beautiful works of art for our “Home” art installation.  Students continued to create home pictures throughout the week, though most of them chose to take them home rather than display them.
We read and talked about Native Americans, the pilgrims who sailed from Plymouth England on the Mayflower to what is now called Plymouth Massachusetts, how these two groups became friends, and the first Thanksgiving celebration.  We also read several stories about being grateful and giving thanks and turned our sad leafless money tree into a giving tree.  The children wrote their names on paper leaves and we recorded what they are thankful for on them, then hung them on the tree.
On Wednesday Tricia joined us for the morning, which was a special treat, especially since only a few children get to see her in the afternoons.  We had fun playing Mr. Potato Head, magnatiles, knex, and play dough for a relaxing morning before our special meal.
The week of Stone Soup finally arrived, and the children got busy preparing on Tuesday.  They first washed their hands, then with Tammy’s guidance they scrubbed and chopped up the vegetables and put them in the big soup pot.  On Wednesday they opened the cans and bags and poured them into a pot.  The soup bubbled and boiled and cooked until it was all ready to eat.  We were grateful to have families join us to share in our celebration.  We munched on crackers and cheese and sipped our cider while the soup cooled, and when it was finally ready to eat, we slurped it up (well, some of us did).  Thank you so much for sending in all the great vegetables, bread, cheese, crackers, and cider for everyone to enjoy.  It was wonderful to have so many families join us, and we very much appreciated all the help cleaning up!  (I apologize that I did not get any pictures of the actual event.)  It was a wonderful week!

We had some beautiful warm fall days for playing word tag, being chased by zombies, building houses, bird watching, riding bikes, and digging.  All the new five year olds are very much enjoying being the big kids who can go into the classroom to get water bottles for anyone who needs one. For Monday art the children made pinch pots out of clay.  We learned that long ago there was no plastic, glass, or ceramic, so it was common for Native American’s to use clay to make pots and bowls.  Throughout the week at the art table children also made necklaces using a variety of wooden, straw, and plastic beads.  They were introduced to the use of a needle for the first time – how to thread the needle through the eye then how to string the beads through the needle. We enjoyed a visit from Dr. Tarkleson on Wednesday morning.  She discussed what her job is – to keep us healthy – and introduced and demonstrated the various medical instruments that she uses to examine and treat her patients, including a stethoscope, otoscope, ophthalmoscope, reflex hammer, tongue depressor, sphygmomanometer, bandages, and syringes.  The children were excited to try on her medical caps and coats and test out the instruments.  Thank you so much Dr. Tarkleson!
We read several more Stone Soup stories, including the Pete Seeger and Paul DuBois Jacobs version, Some Friends to Feed.  We discussed how giving and sharing can help others and can make us feel good.  We let the children know that if they would like to help some families, they could bring in some food, and we recognized that some already have brought in items to donate.  We will keep the box out for the next couple of weeks before the children take it over to the local food pantry in the Methodist Church.
Thursday morning Spanish with Zeanny was once again filled with lots of fun activities.  We practiced the song that tells us to move in different directions – salgo, arriba, abajo, and entre.  In la caja magica we once again found the diez Calabasas and we sang the counting down song.  There was also the book La oruga muy hambienta (the Spanish version of The Very Hungry Caterpillar) and a paper bag la oruga (caterpillar).  Zeanny passed out the various fruits and foods from the story, and when she read the story each of the children took their turn “feeding” la oruga muy hambrienta.  Zeanny introduced us to the words me gusta (I like it) and no me gusta (I don’t like it) then the children made pictures of the foods they do and do not like and pasted them onto a poster. We said goodbye to Casey this week.  Everyone was sad to see her go, though she promised to come back to visit.  Casey was our resident artist who skillfully helped children create and explore with a variety of techniques and mediums.  She will be missed!

For Friday science the children created primitive scales with boards and blocks to introduce the idea of equal weight.  They used beanbags, blocks, and animals to experiment with creating balanced ends.  They carefully set items at each end to keep the weight distributed and prevent the board from tipping over.

As always, the playground was busy, busy, busy with lots of running, log rolling, construction, and hanging around.
For Monday art the children were introduced to the use of lines in art.  We read several stories about lines, then drew our own designs with lines and filled some in. Gerrie Scott came in to visit and taught us a poem about a turkey, then Tammy came and took the children to the library while the play date was held.
The holiday of Dia de Muertos, which is celebrated in the North American country of Mexico, was introduced.  We read the story Day of the Dead and looked at several pictures of Dia de Muertos celebrations, traditions, and costumes, including sugar skulls, skull face painting, altars with photos and favorite items and food of deceased ancestors & relatives, cemeteries covered with marigolds, performers in native Aztec dress, and paper mache skeletons.  For a project the children drew faces and painted them on white pumpkins, as skull face painting is one of the popular traditions. We spent some time discussing our classroom rules, and the children all had many suggestions to share about how to keep us safe and be respectful in the classroom.

Zeanny introduced colors during Spanish and we continued to practice counting.  She read the story Donde esta la Oveja verde? (Where is the Green Sheep) by Mem Fox.  Everyone got four colored turkeys to label with the color names in Spanish.
We celebrated a fifth birthday on Thursday.  We counted as the birthday girl walked the globe around the sun and we all sang “Happy Birthday” to her before she blew out the candle and we enjoyed cupcakes together.

As usual, the playground was very busy this week.  The children were determined to roll over the large fallen tree in the playground.  There were some branch remnants that made it very difficult, but they called over more and more friends until they were finally able to roll it as a team.  They were pretty excited at their accomplishment!  When they decided to do it again, we determined that not only did the branch parts make it harder, but they were unsafe, so we brought out a saw and the children took turns helping to saw them off (under very close supervision).   They really enjoyed using their muscles to cut through the wood. Sleds are good for lots of things . . . For Monday art the children were introduced to still life paintings.  They used matching colors to create their own still life art of apples, gourds, squash, and a pomegranate.  Throughout the week many of the children worked with Casey to paint their own still life works.  Last week the children were introduced to giving their work a title, and that continued this week.  There were some pretty fantastic and descriptive titles, including “Fruity Fruit,” “Pomegranate,” “Halloween Fruit,” “Apple Face,” “Silly Apple,” “Fruit Salad,” and “A Yellow Apple.”
Santa’s Village dropped off some pumpkins on Monday for an art project we will be doing next week. The children helped unload the pumpkins then bring them inside. The next afternoon students helped bring them back outside to be spray painted white to prepare them to become calaveras.
The dramatic play area has been transformed into a Doctor’s Office, and the class physicians have been very busy caring for both their human and animal patients.  A lot of immunizations have been administered, broken bones bandaged, and routine check-ups given.  It was a very busy office and we are all now quite healthy and well immunized.
The sensory table was filled with sand, which was quite a popular activity.  It can be rather calming pouring, scooping, and sifting, and many children gravitated toward this area day after day.
Dr. Drill and Fill was brought out to use with play dough, and the tooth brushing activity was set out. There were lots of busy dentists fixing cavities and cleaning teeth. This week we introduced the first continent that we will be studying, the continent of North America, which is made up of 23 countries, including the United States of America, where we live.  We will focus on the countries of Mexico, Canada, and the United States, as this is a short and busy month.  We located North America on the globe and on the world map and we learned the continent song, which we will sing all throughout the year as we continue to learn about the seven continents.  We read a short book about the Seven Continents, and another about North America. The ocean animals were traded in for the animals of North America, and the tree blocks came out. The children used them to build forests of trees and to do some logging, filling up their dump trucks and pickup trucks with logs. During Spanish with Zeanny on Thursday the students once again practiced arriba (up) and abajo (down) with a Simon says type game.  They then learned to count to diez (ten) and learned a song about cinco Calabasas (five pumpkins).  Zeanny then introduced the children to a famous Mexican artist, Frida Kahlo, who Monday students learned about several weeks ago, and she read the story Contando Con Frida (Counting with Frida).   Zeanny left little coloring counting books for each child to color, cut, and assemble.
We took out the parachute for the first time this year on Thursday and played several games. We sang “Ring Around the Rosie” several times, then took turns running under and trading places with a classmate when our names were called.  The favorite game, though, was “Great White Shark,” where the children take turns being the shark who swims around in the ocean under the parachute and when it “eats” a child, that child then goes under and becomes the shark while the other comes out and trades places. We had our first rainy day recess of the year on Thursday as well!  The children enjoyed playing with activities that are typically saved for rainy day recess, so they really had fun using a variety of new items, including KNEX, toobers and zots, magnatiles, bristle blocks, reptangles, and playmobile people and animals. Friday students had a down day with Tammy while Lyn had a chance to chat with families during family conferences.  They pulled out the magnatiles and bristle blocks and were busy building and constructing quietly together.  It was a nice break at the end of a busy week.

The stories we read this week: