Sunnybrook Montessori School

Yay for spring!  The trees are starting to bloom and it has turned to bare feet weather – our favorite kind.  Once again we have been taking advantage and spending as much time outside as possible.  There has been so much digging going on, made much easier with the use of three new shovels donated by the Randalls.  An emergency escape route has been completed, and a new in ground pool has been started.  We planted some pansies in our garden and sowed some flower seeds that will hopefully grow over the summer and into the fall.  There have also been lots of baseball games, biking, running, police and bad guys, and babies crawling around. For Monday art we were introduced to comics.  We read some Calvin and Hobbes, and checked out several Garfield and other comics brought in by our resident comic artist.  We discussed how the storylines are usually rather brief and that they are often told through the conversation bubbles of the characters.  The children then created their own comics using paper that had rows of boxes.
At the art table this week the students made self-portraits.  We introduced the word “accuracy” and demonstrated how to use skin, hair, and eye colors that matched our own.  Many artists preferred to use their artistic license to create freely, as many famous artists have done in the past.  They will be displayed on the last day of school for all to see. We began to focus on the sun and its’ role in creating weather.  We read about the sun warming the air, earth, and water and how sunlight is necessary for all living things.  We read again about how sunlight is necessary for the process of photosynthesis, where plants create their own food, and how plants are the basis of the food chain.

Henrietta and Wolfgang and Foxy-Loxy shared an incident with the class when Henrietta called Wolfgang a mean name and he said he didn’t like it.  The class brainstormed some ideas about how Henrietta could respond to Wolfgang, and they had many helpful suggestions, such as offering a hug, apologizing, and offering a toy.  We then brainstormed what Foxy-Loxy’s role should be, and everyone agreed that Foxy-Loxy should stand up for Wolfgang and tell Henrietta that name calling is unkind and not to do it.

On Thursday we pulled out the parachute and the children chose three activities: Ring Around the Rosie, bounce the yarn balls, and Great White Shark/Crocodile.  They had a lot of fun and were so careful to keep the predator under the parachute safe by keeping their feet still. Friday students revisited shadows to continue with the theme of light.  We read several books about shadows and watched a video of a shadow puppet show of the Three Little Pigs.  We then cut out printed animal shadow puppets, or created our own, and then had a fabulous time taking turns performing and spectating.  The children enjoyed it so much that they spent the entire morning working together to perform some very entertaining stories.
We spent the rest of the day outside, having another picnic lunch, then bringing some afternoon reading and writing work out so we could continue to enjoy the sunshine.  We also played a new version of Duck, Duck, Goose, where a child would pick a word from the middle of the circle and read it or have help from friends to read it, then go around the circle tapping heads while saying each letter of the alphabet.  When they landed on the first letter of the word they read, that child would be the “goose” and get up to chase the reader around.  It was a lot of fun and very entertaining!

Two new songs we learned this week:

Little Green Frog

Five Little Ducks

Stories we read:

Inch by Inch – The Garden Song by, David Mallett

The Wind Blew by, Pat Hutchins

There’s Treasure Everywhere – A Calvin and Hobbes Collection by, Bill Watterson

Como se curan los dinosaurios? by, Jane Yolen Y Mark Teague

Zach Apologizes by, William Mulcahy

Light by, Jean-Pierre Verdet

Make Way for Ducklings by, Robert McCloskey

Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy by, Lynley Dodd

Shadow Chasers by, Elly MacKay

Nothing Sticks Like a Shadow by, Ann Tompert

What Makes a Shadow? By, Clyde Robert Bulia

Join us on Saturday, May 14th from 10 AM to 12 noon for some fun spring activities.  We will have springtime arts and crafts and fun games.

Current and future families are welcome, as well as any community members with young children interested in learning more about Sunnybrook.

Enrollment packets for the 2016-2017 school year will be available.

We hope to see you there!

What a week!  We began with snow and ended in shorts and flip-flops.  We spent as much time outside as possible, as the weather has been so fickle this spring that we just had to enjoy the warmth and sunshine while we had it.   The children were very busy kicking and bouncing on balls, having ball battles, playing baseball, pumping up deflated balls, digging trenches, sailing in sinking boats, parenting, being babies, hanging out chatting, observing beetles and worms, and enjoying outside lunches.
On Monday we took a trip to the Weeks Medical Center Hospital where we met several health professionals.  We learned about getting an X-ray, we met the nurses in the Emergency Room and learned about how we might be taken care of if we need to come to the hospital for an emergency, and we toured the ambulance.  All of the attendees were given a snack to take and an activity book (if your child attended but did not get an activity book, please grab one from the top of the filing cabinet). At the art table the children had a lot of fun making frogs out of paper towel tubes.  They stapled one end together, then painted the outside green and the inside red.  When they were dry, they glued on eyes, legs, and a tongue. This week we delved further into weather, what causes weather, who helps predict the weather, and what types of weather we could experience.  We had a lengthy discussion with lots of information shared by many of the students.  We discussed storms, including hail storms, tornadoes, blizzards, wind sheers, and thunderstorms, and how people stay safe if we experience a storm.  We learned about wind and that it is created when hot air and cold air meet, and the updrafts and downdrafts push against each other.
On Wednesday we had a special visitor.  Sue’s granddaughter, Mersadies, came to school with her and the children LOVED showing her around and having her play and draw with them. We also had a special visitor on Thursday.  Eeyore came with Believe in Books.  We heard a story about a talent show in the Hundred Acre Wood, and how all of the friends performed different talents, even Eeyore.  Everyone was excited to give Eeyore a hug, high five, fist bump, or wave and pick a book of their very own to take home.
For Friday science we read even more about wind then the students made weather-vanes to test wind direction.  It was quite calm out, so we were wondering if we would get a chance to test them.  Luckily by recess time the wind had picked up and we used our weather-vanes to observe that the wind was coming from the north west.

Books we read:
A Hungry Lion or A Dwindling Assortment of Animals by, Lucy Ruth Cummins

Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct by, Mo Willems

Two by, Kathryn Otashi

Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse by, Kevin Henkes

Winnie the Pooh by, A. A. Milne

Wind by, Marion Bauer

Weather by, Kristin Bair Rattini

Where Is the Green Sheep? By, Mem Fox

My Friend Rabbit by, Eric Rohmann

Feel the Wind by, Arthur Dorros

One of the biggest struggles I have is when to guide students and when to step back.  In last week’s post I introduced this idea of  waiting to intervene in social situations.  This applies equally with every other area.  When students are struggling with solving something, I know it is best to observe and wait for them to figure it out on their own.  I know that they learn best when they work through it independently and have that “aha” moment.  I know that the benefits are so much higher than if I “teach” them through it.  Unfortunately, sometimes my desire to rescue them overcomes me and I do them a disservice by interfering.  I am constantly judging when it is still a productive struggle, and when the point of frustration has been reached.  Stepping back has so many positive outcomes, particularly the confidence and sense of accomplishment they get when they figure it out themselves and a true, deeper understanding.  They also develop perseverance, a passion for learning, the ability to think and problem solve, the knowledge that they are capable, and the knowledge that you have faith in them.  There are so many benefits to giving them the opportunity to teach themselves.  I am working to do a better job of introducing, encouraging them to persevere, to ask the questions they need to ask themselves in order to figure it out, and demonstrate my faith in their abilities.