Sunnybrook Montessori School

Who:  All children ages 2-4 & their caregivers and siblings

What:  Come play with friends in the Sunnybrook Classroom.  Meet other local families with young children.  Do an art activity.  Explore the classroom.  Have a snack.  Listen to a story.  Meet the Sunnybrook Director/Teacher.

Where: Sunnybrook Montessori School

When: The first Monday of each month, October – May (January is the 2nd Monday) from 10-11 AM.

Fall has arrived!  The leaves are turning and the weather is cooling off so our wardrobes now include sweatshirts, sweaters, jackets and long sleeves.    For art on Monday the children were introduced to Yves Klein and his signature color blue.  We read the story, A Blue So Blue about a little boy who dreams of a shade of blue both soft and strong and he searches the world far and wide to find it, finally returning home to his mother and her eyes that are the color he has been dreaming of.  We learned about monochrome art – pictures that are done in various shades of one color – then made our own blue art. The play dough was very popular this week, as it was night sky blue with sparkling silver “stars” and was paired with a variety of nocturnal animals.  We discussed the difference between nocturnal, being awake at night, and diurnal, being awake during the day.  Most animals, including humans, are diurnal, but some animals are nocturnal.  Ask your child if he/she can recall some of the nocturnal animals that were with the play dough.  Some may surprise you! The bell matching has also been popular. There are currently four pairs to match, though we will eventually build up to the full set of thirteen pairs. Each black or white base bell matches one brown base bell. The children tap them gently to hear the tone, then listen carefully to hear which ones sound the same. It is a challenging auditory discrimination activity! We talked a bit about gardens and which vegetables we grew in our gardens this summer.  We discussed the harvest season when we pick everything that is left before the weather turns too cold and the frost kills it all.  We read the story Tops and Bottoms about a hare who convinces a lazy bear to let him plant vegetables on his land, and in exchange he will do all of the work and share the harvest with bear.  When the bear chose to have the tops, hare planted beets, carrots, and radishes.  When bear chose the bottoms, hare planted celery, lettuce, and broccoli, and when bear asked for both tops and bottoms, hare planted corn.  The following year, and every year after, bear stops being lazy and plants and harvests his own crops.We were introduced to the seasons, particularly fall, and why they change.  We read part of the book, Sunshine Makes the Seasons, which told us how the sun warms the earth.  When the days get shorter, the weather gets colder because the sun does not shine as long.  We looked at the globe and saw how the sun is tilted and that it takes one year to go around the sun.  As it orbits the sun, we get less or more sunlight depending on where we are in the earths’ orbit and whether we are tilted toward the sun or away.  We used a flashlight shining on the globe to demonstrate this rather complex concept.  Although it is a lot to grasp, our song, “Four Seasons Every Year” helps us to remember that the seasons are due to the tilt of the earth. We have kept an eye on our handwashing experiment, and we have spotted some germs growing on the bread touched by all of the dirty hands, and the bread touched by the rinsed hands, but the control piece and the handwashing piece are both germ free. Thursday was the harvest festival.  The children participated in a variety of art activities and games, including vegetable printing, pine cone rolling art, leaf painting, sack races, watermelon bowling, bean bag toss, and an apple grabbing game (moving apples floating in water from one bucket to another using tongs).  Many families joined us for the fun and while some children made a few choices and moved on, others did everything available.  We had a surprise visit from Sue, one of our teachers from last year.  The children were very excited to see her and had a great time wrestling and horsing around with her.  It was a fun morning! Friday students continued the fall harvest theme with an apple taste test for science.  We read I Am an Apple about the life cycle of an apple, then we all washed our hands to begin the taste test.  We examined 7 varieties of apple: granny smith, golden delicious, gala, mac, honeycrisp, fuji, and red delicious.  We noticed that they all looked different on the outside.  They had different shapes and different coloring.  When we cut them open we observed that they looked a little different on the inside as well.  When we tasted them we noticed that they all tasted differently.  Some were tart, others were sweet.  Some were hard and crispy, while others were soft and mushy.  Everyone decided which ones were their favorites and wrote their names on the chart next to the type they preferred.  The Golden Delicious was the most popular by far!
  The stories we read this week:
A Blue So Blue by, Jean-FranCois Dumont

Fall by, Sian Smith & Rebecca Rissman

Sunshine Makes the Seasons by, Franklyn M. Branley

Tops and Bottoms by, Janet Stevens

The Big Red Barn by, Margaret Wise Brown

Red Riding Hood by, James Marshall

Animals Should Definitely Not Wear Clothing by, Judi Barret

Sky Tree by, Thomas Locker

Fall Leaves by, Loretta Holland & Elly MacKay

The Very Busy Spider by, Eric Carle

I Am an Apple by, Jean Marzollo

We continue to appreciate and enjoy the warm, summer weather.  By the end of the morning everyone is excited to get out, get active and enjoy the sunshine! Monday students were introduced to the artist Frida Kahlo, who is known for her many self-portraits.  We observed that her self-portraits were accurate representations, with authentic skin, eye, and hair color, clothing, and face shape and depiction.  We again read parts of We Are All Alike, We Are All Different, then the children made their own self-portraits using the most accurate portrayal and colors possible.  Throughout the week, all children took a turn looking in the mirror to examine their faces; checking eye color, skin shade, and hair and lip color to make their own authentic self-portraits. The sensory table was traded out for the light table, and the children used their imaginations to create pictures with translucent colored shapes. The magnatiles were put away and the vehicles came out, which were racing across the floor and lining up neatly in the “garage” barn and in rows along the carpet.
On Tuesday during circle time we read the story, Wash Your Hands and started a hand washing science experiment.  We placed four pieces of bread into four separate bags.  The first piece was the control, which was touched only by a gloved hand.  The second slice was the “dirty” piece, which we passed around the circle for everyone to pat with their unwashed hands.  The third one was the “rinsed” piece, which was touched by a child who had dipped her hands in water to rinse them off, and the final baggie held the slice that had been touched by hands that were scrubbed with soap for 20 seconds and rinsed with warm water.  (Each slice of bread was later misted with water to initiate some activity). We will continue to watch our experiment to see if we notice any changes over the next several weeks.
The students were introduced to how to get a teacher’s attention by walking up to her and placing a hand on her shoulder or holding her hand until she has finished her conversation.  We also saw how to walk around the work mats to respect others and their work.

On Wednesday we read the story Fire Drill and had a discussion about how to evacuate the building.  The students were very knowledgeable and had many things to share, including how to crawl on the ground under the rising smoke, walking quietly to line up when a fire alarm sounds, that fire personnel always come to put out fires, and that although a fire will likely not happen at school, we practice how to evacuate in case we are baking and smoke sets off the alarm.   For the initial drill we all got ready for recess then lined up before pressing the smoke detector button, counting, filing out silently, lining up along the fence, and counting again.
A small basket of instruments was available for students to take out and play throughout the week, but everyone was excited to pick and play instruments together as a group again on Thursday.  The whole note symbol was introduced and we practiced playing one note for a count of four.  We played our instruments to the tune of “twinkle, twinkle, little star” then played loudly and quietly and loudly and quietly before putting our instruments away for the day.
Friday students were very engaged in a science discussion about what makes up the land parts of the earth.  We talked about rocks that make up mountains, large boulders that break off, smaller rocks, gravel, and sand that is created when rocks crash against each other and break down into smaller and smaller pieces when pushed around in the water.  We looked at a variety of rocks, some quite heavy and others much lighter.  There were some very smooth round ones and some rough ones.  We also looked at different sands that were made up of rocks, shells, and/or coral.  We talked about volcanoes and how land can be formed by cooled lava.  We also played with some soil, which we learned was formed by dead plants and animals as they decay and break down with the help of insects, rain, fungus, etc.  Several students listened to the Magic School bus story about the Rot Squad’s visit to a hollow log and learned how slime molds, beetles, and the elements contribute to decomposition.
Stories we read:
We Are All Alike, We Are All Different by, The Cheltenham Elementary School Kindergarteners

Why Do You Cry? by, Kate Klise

Wash Your Hands by, Margaret McNamara

Fire Drill by, Paul Dubois Jacobs

Pete The Cat – I Love My White Shoes by, Eric Litwin

A Tree For All Seasons by, Robin Bernard

The Magic School Bus Meets the Rot Squad by, Joanna Cole

Abiyoyo by, Pete Seeger

Bark George by, Jules Feiffer Songs we sang:
“Make New Friends”
“If You’re Happy and you Know It”
“Jump Jim Joe”
“Ram Sam Sam”
“Way Up High in the Apple Tree”

We were so grateful for the continuation of warm, sunny weather most of the week.  After a morning of fun inside we are always ready to get out to run and move and be loud.   We even enjoyed the Wednesday rain showers.  Even though we all had to change into dry clothes, we had fun getting wet.  We spent our outside time playing with the big silver ball and the smaller balls, running, kicking, and throwing.  We loved playing crocodile chase, digging in the sand, being goofy with our friends, and searching for toads, spiders, and other creatures. Monday students read To Be an Artist by, Maya Ajmera & John D. Ivanko and I Am an Artist by, Pat Lowery Collins.  We learned that artists may paint, draw, sculpt, sing, dance, perform, weave, and sew.  We also learned that artists see art in the world around them.  We took a walk outside and collected items from nature then brought them back to the classroom to create nature collages.  The art table stayed busy for the remainder of the week as many marvelous nature collages were constructed. In the tank we searched for the two chrysalises that were formed over the weekend by the two black swallowtail caterpillars that some friends brought in for us last week.  One climbed all the way to the top and transformed there, while the other remained close to the bottom and changed on the underside of the bark piece.  We looked on the tank underneath them to find the little crumpled up skins that they split out of when they changed from caterpillar to chrysalis.  (This video shows the process of shedding the skin – it is incredible to see!) During circle time we introduced names for a variety of emotions and feelings and how we might appropriately express them and react to them.  The children had many suggestions and ideas to share. We talked about getting hugs, walking away, taking deep breaths, going to a quiet place to be alone, looking at a book, and crying.  We sang the song “If You’re Happy and You Know It” and used some of our suggestions for actions in the song, such as, “If you’re mad and you know it walk away” and “If you’re frustrated and you know it take some breaths” to help reinforce these strategies.

On Thursday we read Max Found Two Sticks by, Brian Pinkney and introduced percussion instruments.  We were pretty excited to take them out.  We talked about how we would get a chance to play two different instruments and we may not get to use our first choice of instrument today.  We discussed that we may feel disappointed and it would be okay to say, “Oh, bummer!” but that we could pick something else for today and would get a chance with the other instruments another day.  The children did very well being polite and expressing disappointment appropriately.  It was fun to play our instruments together while we counted, and then to play them louder and louder like a rain storm or a jet passing overhead, and then more quietly as the rain and jet passed.
We decided to postpone Friday science in favor of getting outside, as we had lots of energy to expel, so our exploration of rocks and soil will resume next week.  The children had a busy day filled with playing instruments, writing, puzzle maps, play dough, magnatiles, letter games, word matching work, art, cooking in the play kitchen, and chatting over snack and lunch.  Outside we had fun playing ball and hauling all of the “junk” into a big junk pile, then returning it all to the toy box at the end of recess.
 Books We read during group times this week:
I Am an Artist by, Pat Lowery Collins
To Be an Artist by, Maya Ajmera & John D. Ivanko
Duck on a Bike by, David Shannon
A Porcupine Named Fluffy by, Helen Lester
Paul Meets Bernadette by, Rosy Lamb
Bark George by, Jules Feiffer
The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear by, Audrey Wood
Max Found Two Sticks by, Brian Pinkney
Earth’s Landforms and Bodies of Water
The Mermaid and the Shoe by, K. G. Campbell