Happy May!

Stone Pizza pictures:

The preparation...





Ready for the oven!


Mmmm...pizza!



Thank you to everyone for contributing your favorite pizza topping. The children had a great time washing, cutting, shredding and preparing the pizza together.

Over April vacation I took my girls to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory & Gardens in Deerfield, MA (which I highly recommend if you are ever in the area) and was able to bring back a Painted Lady butterfly kit so we can watch the butterfly life cycle. We have 5 caterpillars that we are observing. The observation at the end of the week was that they were definitely "fatter." Hopefully we can observe the transformation to butterflies by the end of the school year.




With caterpillars on the brain we enjoyed the "Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle and talked about the collage art technique that is used in many of our favorite Eric Carle books. We experimented with some collage art of our own:



Our Folk Dances are coming along nicely and we hope to be able to share them with you before the end of the school year. It was a great Sunnybrook week!

(Our "Sandpiper Dance")

We had a great week singing, practicing some new folk dances and learning more about food. On Tuesday we enjoyed a story called, "Stone Pizza" which was similar to Stone Soup, except it features a coyote and other desert animals. We had a discussion about the differences and similarities in the Stone Soup story and the Stone Pizza story. We thought about our favorite pizza toppings and created our own paper plate pizzas. After vacation we ask that everyone bring in their favorite non-meat pizza topping, so we can work together and make our own Stone Pizza. It will be an fun (and yummy) way to end our food unit.




During circle on Thursday we made our own food pyramid out of cardboard boxes. We then took turns sorting pictures of food into the pyramid. Some of our friends then enjoyed making a food collage with the pictures.

As always, we have been busy with our work! Some things we have been working on...

The Stamp Game is used for static (no exchanging or carrying) addition. It is more abstract than using the bead material for addition but the child is still manipulating the material to reinforce the concrete addition process.



The Multiplication Board introduces the child to the concept of multiplication in a hands on way.



Working on fine motor skills by scooping beans.


Geography puzzle work.



Butterfly tracing!

This week we spent time thinking about Spring. We considered the signs of Spring we have begun to see: robins, rain, warmer days, snow melting, and of course, mud. We read books and sang some songs about the Spring weather. We've been reading some short, seasonal poems at circle and the children have been practicing writing the poem (with the words dotted out). It's been a great way to incorporate poetry and work on our handwriting.

We've are still working on folk dances at music time. Our Danish Dance of Greeting has gotten quite good and we've added some new ones. We are also using it as an opportunity to learn a bit about the countries that the dances originate from.

Work time is still busy, busy! The older children enjoyed a lesson on time and decided to make "Time Books." Geography maps, math and sensory materials have been chosen quite a bit lately.
It's been great to see the excitement over their work and so much learning taking place.

Happy Spring! The children were busy with their work this week. Geography puzzles, working on Alphabet and phonogram books and our new hammering activity kept them busy. Our hammering activity allows them to make different pictures by hammering shapes into a cork board. It has been a lot of fun and is great for fine motor skill development.

During music the children paired up and worked on a rhythm stick combination with their partner and as a group we learned the Danish dance of greeting.

Parents of beginning readers: I will be sending home a photocopy of the book your child has been reading at school that week they may want to read this book at home with you. Most of our readers are working through the Primary phonics series. Many of the children love reading their books and drawing pictures about what they have read or practicing writing words from the book.

Early in the week we were scientists and inspected different fruits. With our observations we were able to answer some question like:
"Where are the seeds located in the fruit, on the outside or inside?"
"How big are the seeds?"
"How do the seeds look/feel?"
"How and where does this fruit grow?"
This experiment came with the added bonus of an extra snack time. We also enjoyed an amusing story called "Showdown at the Food Pyramid" about achieving the right balance of healthy foods.

During music we enjoyed rhythm clapping activities using the names of our favorite foods. We had a Sunnybrook student share their musical talent by playing us a a couple songs on the piano and another student brought in a guitar which gave us the opportunity to examine and learn the names of the different parts of the instrument.

The children were delighted by the spring-like weather and enjoyed the time in the sunshine running, playing and doing some "yard work" by helping pick up the sticks off the lawn.

Show and Tell: Wednesday, March 24th

Although it is time to take bird feeders down, please continue to send in your bird sightings from around your house, around town, etc. Our bird chart is filling up, with many chickadees and crows spotted. We've also had sightings of a cardinal, junco, and some bluejays and wild turkeys. It will be interesting to see if our Sunnybrook friends can see some other birds as the weather becomes warmer.

This week we began talking about our new unit...food! We sorted foods into food groups at circle time and learned the names and colors of some nutritious food. The food sorting activity is now on our shelves for the children to work with. We also examined our snacks and tried to decide which food group category they would belong to.

The children enjoyed a visit from The Cat in the Hat this week, who brought some wonderful books with him. Their observation was that he was, "very tall".

As always, we were busy working away. The children enjoyed some new materials, such as the Sound Cylinders and the new control maps to help with the geography puzzles. The older students got to use new phonogram Sandpaper letters to create "sh" and "ch" books.

We started this week learning about our last animal class...arthropods! We played a game with animal cards where we sorted insects into one category and all other arthropods into another category. We learned how to identify an insect by looking for 3 body parts and 6 legs.

We read some great books about other arthropods like spiders and lobsters. The children were surprised to learn that lobsters shed their skin (and eat it!) and if they lose a leg they can grow another one.

During music we've been learning about the instruments of the orchestra. We enjoyed a matching game with our instrument cards and talked about what family the instruments belong to. Our Friday group enjoyed the story, 'Meet the Orchestra'. On Thursday, we got out our favorite books with music CD's and revisited, 'Stone Soup', 'Victor Vito', 'Puff the Magic Dragon' and moved around as different vehicles to 'We All Go Traveling By'.

Our friends have also been busy with their work. Lots of math materials have been out this week from the Sandpaper Numerals and the Number Rods to the Long Chains and the Stamp Game.