Sunnybrook Montessori School

tending the sandbox plant

Spring has sprung!  The trees are green.  The grass is green.  The blossoms on the crab apple tree have appeared, covering our playground in pretty white petals and scenting the air.  Some of us examined the flower parts, including the petals, pistils, and stamen.  The children discovered a plant growing in the sandbox and decided to care for it.  A toad was found hopping across the grass, and everyone interested took a turn holding it before allowing it to continue on it’s way.

toad friend

visiting

teamwork rescue project

preparing to jump

Jump 1

Jump 2

Jump 3

Jump 4

the princess in her castle

There was a lot of royalty in our class this week.  All the princes and princesses of Sunnybrook were showing off their fancy attire and bejeweled crowns, which they received when they did Spanish vocabulary work.

a princess making an “a” book

princesses doing dice addition

the princess sorting sounds

South America map puzzle

We continued our study of South America as we learned about the Amazon river, which was created by glacial ice melt from the Andes mountains.  There are thousands of tributaries that run into the Amazon, which flows to the Atlantic Ocean. We learned that there are tribes that live along the river that have only recently been discovered.

placing Brazil

illustrating the Chocolate Tree book

At the art table students each illustrated a picture to go with Zeanny’s story of her Abuela and the Chocolate Tree.  We will use the illustrations to create a book so that everyone can have a copy on the last day of school.

painting at the easels with friends

drawing

water colors

Thursday afternoon thunderstorm pictures

writing books

family portraits

Spanish vegetables vocabulary with Zeanny

During Spanish we continued to practice our Spanish songs for the last day, and the students spent a lot of time doing the vegetable and fruit vocabulary cards.

Spanish vocab cards

word match

sound sort

shape matching

sentence building with Emma

play dough with friends

Left Right Center

journal writing

frog parts

fraction families

folding washcloths

ear check

color sorting

clock

afternoon work

100 board

Hello? Hello?

Friday students spent the morning doing sound experiments.  They created a giant telephone by taping together paper towel tubes, then taking turns whispering and listening to each other.  We also took turns hitting the tuning fork and placing it in water to see how sound waves move.  The students then made ear trumpets so they could focus sounds to their ear canals.

silly boys with their ear trumpets

/g/ ghost, /b/ ball

The afternoon students have been enjoying the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory during lunch.  They particularly like it when each child does not listen to Willy Wonka and suffers the consequences.  They find the departing songs that the Oompa-Loompas sing quite entertaining.  We are looking forward to finding out what happens at the end of the book!

Funny Faces

Can you believe we have only three weeks of school left!?

We have really been enjoying the spring weather.  The children had a lot of fun playing in a tee-pee and tents built with long sticks and sheets.  They have been playing T-ball, soccer, digging in the sand, playing chase, and biking around.

boys in a tent

stump jumping

batter up

finding fairies

balancing skills

sandbox play

coloring maps of South America

The continent of South America was introduced this week.  We learned about the climate, the animals, the languages, and the landscape.  We discovered that there are 12 countries in South America.  There is also a region called French Guiana, which is not a country but an overseas department of France.  We found where the equator passes through Ecuador, Columbia, and Brazil.  We also identified the Amazon River and the Andes Mountains and some animals that live there.

Africa

time

color grading

constructive triangles

cylinders

geometric solid picture sort

writing

hundred board

lacing cards with Emma

do you hear me now?

painting

plant care

play dough

play dough and bead transfer

reading

more reading

sound cylinders

spindle boxes

spooning

top spinning

writing

spring diorama

At the art table the students created spring dioramas with green grass, blue skies, trees, and some animals made with clay that we might see in the spring, such as bears and frogs.

securing the trees

Last visit of the year from Believe in Books

On Thursday we were visited by Believe in Books.  We listened to the story, If you Give a Pig a Pancake. by Laura Numeroff. Everyone got to greet the pig and pick a book to take home.

Spanish fruit vocab

For Spanish we practiced our song for the last day and the vocabulary words for fruits and vegetables.  Zeanny created matching games where we match the names of the fruits and vegetables with a picture, and many students spent time practicing with the games.

practicing fruit names in Spanish

Spanish with Zeanny

reading work

Friday students were busy as always!  They were so engaged with all of their activities that we ran out of time for science.  Almost everyone did the Spanish vegetable vocabulary game and got a crown with a star sticker. Gerrie Scott joined us for a story, then we had fun learning about adverbs and making silly sentences by drawing words from bags holding articles, adjectives, nouns, verbs, and adverbs.  We sure made some funny sentences, such as “The happy baby cried sadly.”

reading “A is for Salad”

frog parts

drawing mommy with blond hair

finding words in a letter

baseball

bare feet in the sand

Oh, what a beautiful week it was!  The weather was so wonderful that we spent as much time outside as we could.  On Thursday we decided to have a picnic lunch and spend the whole afternoon outside.  We searched the bank for long sticks to build a tee-pee, which the children had fun playing in and sitting in while doing some writing.

planting a tree in the sand box

writing in the tee-pee

block structure

Thursday afternoon picnic

Our new friend, Emma

A new teacher has joined us for the remainder of the year on Tuesday and Friday afternoons.  Emma, a student from White Mountains Regional High School, will be doing a brief internship at Sunnybrook.  The students had great fun with her this week, and by Friday were anxious to see her again.

Snack time stories

concentric circle tracing

boys and blocks

‘e’ words

meeting Mr. Turkey

Tuesday afternoon students got up close and personal with a turkey.  We looked at the beautiful feathers that were brown, black, white, and iridescent.  We examined the feet, tail, head, beard, snood, and wattle.

This week we continued to talk about healthy food and the food groups.  We learned about the food that we get from plants, which part of the plant different types of food are, and how they help our bodies stay strong and healthy.  We learned about whole grains, which are the seeds of various plants that give us energy.  We learned about fruit, which are the flowers that turn into houses for the seeds, and we learned about vegetables, some of which are also houses for the seeds, but others that are roots, leaves, and stalks.

triangle match

rough and smooth

play dough

puppet theater

reading

number tray

number puzzle

multiplication board

looking in the mirror for a self portrait

At the art table the children worked carefully to draw their best self and family portraits.  The children drew self and family portraits at the beginning of the year, and it is fun to compare the two.

drawing monsters

letter work

heart beat

number tray

Spanish fruit matching game

For Spanish this week we learned the names of the fruits in Spanish and Zeanny introduced a matching activity that we can use to practice them.  We also began learning a Spanish song for our last day performance.

For science on Friday the students removed a spider plant from its’ pot and examined the roots and leaves.  We noticed that the roots are almost as big as the top part of the plant and discussed how their job is to drink up the water that the plant needs to live.

vehicle puzzle

teaching a friend the bank game

building silly sentences

journal work

Friday work

continent map tracing, coloring, and pin punching

color grading

reading together

Sleeping Queens

We are now accepting registrations for the 2014-2015 School Year.  The hours and days have been expanded to accommodate the needs of  families.  We will be offering early education for 3-7 year old children five days a week from 7AM – 5PM.  We will offer 3 day and 5 day full and half day sessions.  If you are interested in visiting, learning more about Sunnybrook, and/or receiving an enrollment packet, please contact the Directress through e-mail at [email protected] or calling 788-3884.