Sunnybrook Montessori School

Construction continued this week, as a train track was placed from one sand box to the other.  Games of chase kept us moving, while some dolls from home joined us for adventures with unicorns, dragons and other mystical creatures.
During Monday art we continued to learn about the use of lines in art.  We rolled marbles dipped in paint back and forth and all around to create crossing lines all over our papers.  It was a lot of fun shaking and tipping the trays to roll and bounce the marbles around.
A Doctor’s office was set up where we used genuine medical instruments to examine patients, including stethoscopes, a thermometer, an otoscope, a tuning fork (to check hearing), eye charts, a scale, and a reflex hammer.  We studied x-rays of the human body, wrapped up broken bones, listened to lungs and heart beats, examined eyes, ears, and throats, gave shots, weighed our patients, and checked reflexes.  There were a lot of busy doctors making sure that everyone was healthy. We began to talk about the human body and ways that we take care of them.  We felt the bones in our skeletons and the muscles surrounding them.  We used a giant reversible magnetic body to see the various parts, including muscles, blood vessels, bones, and organs. We read two more versions of Stone Soup (Nail Soup by Eric Maddern and Paul Hess and Stone Soup by Jon J. Muth) and began to talk about giving and the joy that comes from helping others. We were excited to celebrate a fourth birthday with pink frosted confetti cupcakes.  As the birthday girl walked the globe around the sun, we counted each year since her birth.
Friday students enjoyed a fun day with Tammy while Lyn met with parents to talk about all of the great things that everyone has been doing since school began.  For anyone interested, here is a link to an article discussing the most recent research on the long term effects of developing early social skills, which I may have mentioned yesterday.

The garden bed has been a great source of wonder this week.  Fingers, shovels and diggers were busy every day pulling out the few remaining plants and searching through the dirt for worms.  Word tag was once again a popular game.  The tagger slowly stretches a word out into the individual sounds and the decoders shout out which word they heard then run run run as fast as they can.
During Monday art the students were introduced to Wassily Kandinsky, who used many shapes in his paintings.  One of his most famous pieces is Squares with Concentric Circles, which inspired our creativity for the week.  The children used various sized jars, cups, bowls, and caps to print black circles all over their papers.  When the circles dried they used different colors to paint them in or to create their own colorful abstract art. We welcomed two new students to Sunnybrook on Tuesday morning.  We enjoyed playing together and getting to know them, and are looking forward to the rest of the year together. We discussed when it is important to come get a teacher for help, and when and how to give friendly reminders.  The children worked together to make a list of classroom rules and noticed that we are doing quite well with following most of them.  We identified a couple that we are going to actively work on, particularly putting away our work before moving on. We also continued to discuss how we are the same and how we are different. How we all have bones and muscles and thoughts and feelings, but we have different likes and dislikes. We read the story Elmer by David McKee about an elephant who is afraid that he is only loved because of his unique patchwork coloring, but discovers that he is loved for who he is and not how he looks. The children made their own Elmer pictures in honor of Elmer’s uniqueness. As it is Stone Soup month at Sunnybrook, we read two versions of the story, Stone Soup by Marcia Brown and Some Friends to Feed by Pete Seeger. Friday we had a quiet day.  The children spent the morning working then went outside early as it looked like rain was imminent.  Luckily it held off and we had a lot of fun playing baseball, chase, make believe, and digging for more worms in the garden.  In the afternoon we decided to take a walk into town to visit the Polish Princess for a chocolate chip cookie, then spent some time at the library putting on puppet shows, playing with Duplos, reading stories, and riding in the school bus, fire truck, and ambulance.

There were many emergencies on the playground this week that required the help of many firemen and policemen.  Fires and bad guys were running rampant!  We also had some construction taking place.  A pool and a hot tub were installed, then converted into mud pits.During Monday Art the students were introduced to the use of lines.  For a project they made many straight lines across their papers, intersecting to create different shapes and patterns, which they colored in.  Black paper and pastels were also available all week, which resulted in some eye popping art. Henrietta and Wolfgang came down for a chat on Tuesday.  They both told us a little bit about themselves.  We learned that Henrietta is pretty energetic and active, while Wolfgang is more reserved and observant, and that they are best friends.  Henrietta told us that she is working on recognizing personal space and they both shared how they feel and talk together when Henrietta’s body enters Wolfgang’s personal space and hurts him.  We re-read the story Accept and Value Each Person at Henrietta’s request. Officer Lyon from the Lancaster Police Department stopped in on Wednesday to talk to us about his job.  He shared that his main responsibility is to help people.  He also makes sure that people are following the rules and being safe.  Many students shared experiences when they saw a policeman, particularly when a driver was pulled over for speeding or other traffic violations.
The month of October was ushered out by a witch, a vampire, a fireman, a Ghostbuster, an astronaut, Batman, Robin, Spiderman, Superman, Bumblebee the transformer, a superhero, a peacock, Fancy Nancy, Cinderella, two Anna’s, a purple butterfly, a bumblebee, and a ballerina.  They were super excited to celebrate Halloween with some fun activities, including mask making, skeleton assembling, worm and rat tossing, pumpkin carving, and spider web weaving.  Everyone very much enjoyed all of the delicious treats that were sent in.  There were even enough to send some home with everyone.  Thank you to all who contributed! We also celebrated a special 5^th Halloween birthday on Thursday. The birthday boy walked counter-clockwise around the candle sun five times while we counted for him.  After an entertainingly out of sync rendition of “Happy Birthday” he blew out the candle and we enjoyed yummy pumpkin cupcakes topped with cream cheese frosting! Happy 5^th Birthday!
Friday students had a relaxing day.  They did some painting, some sound games, played with the new community vehicles, had fun chatting during snack, and many of them made books.  Toward the end of the day we did our science project.  We shaved down crayons and began pressing them together to form a sedimentary rock, the second of the three types of rock we are studying.

What a fun and very busy week we had!  We were grateful for the weather, which stayed mostly dry, as we were outside A LOT.  We enjoyed our (most likely) last picnic of the season on Wednesday, which was sunny and warm. For Monday Art students learned about Mark Rothko, who painted enormous canvasses of color blocks, then created their own paintings in his style.
Everyone was excited for our field trip to Farmer Shawn’s for apple picking and cider pressing on Tuesday.  Thank you to all of the families who drove, making it possible for us to go. The pictures tell the story!
   We continued to talk about fire safety and introduced 911 with the story Impatient Pamela Calls 911.  We stressed that 911 is only for emergencies, and we discussed what some emergencies might be –if the house is on fire, if there is a car accident, or if a parent is hurt and cannot get to the phone.  We encouraged the children to learn their addresses by practicing with their families and to develop an escape plan in case of a fire at home.  This site has good information about fire safety and making an escape and meet plan with your children http://www.safekids.org/fire. When Wednesday finally arrived for our visit to the fire station, everyone was ready!  We discussed our route and the safety rules for walking down the street.  Everyone held hands with their partner and we were off.  When we reached the fire station we were greeted by Zina, who gave us important safety information and showed us the fire trucks, axes, cutters for cutting up cars that have been damaged in an accident and have passengers inside, the camera that detects heat so they can see if there are fires in the wall, and all the gear that they put on to stay safe when fighting a fire.  It was super exciting to get fire hats as we left and Sunnybrook was full of firefighters putting out fires and rescuing people for the rest of the week. The children all made nice Thank You pictures for Farmer Shawn and Zina, which we will walk to the Post Office to mail on Monday. Friendship and including everyone has also been a main focus lately.  In a Montessori classroom, children regularly do individual or small group work, and they have the right to say that they prefer to work alone.  We have been working on recognizing the difference between individual, small group, and large group activities, and understanding that when playing large group games, everyone is welcome to participate.  We have also been talking about individual differences and how we accept and appreciate everyone for who they are.   This attitude is the foundation of our philosophy of universal respect. By the end of the week the children were worn out and ready for a relaxing day.  They made relaxation jars with water, glitter, and glitter glue.  They drew, made books, read stories, painted together, and played firefighter.  For Friday Science we continued to learn about rocks.  We examined and sorted a variety of samples, matching them to their pictures and learning their names.