New clothes pinning work!

Brooke, proudly showing off the Mother's Day gift she wrapped all by herself!

Rowan carefully wrapping mom's present...

Just one more piece of tape...

Sophia showing Selby where Australia is!

Baker working with the scissor tongs!

Max washing the windows!

Jack and Rushil drawing together at the light table!

 

Max and Jack working with the new life cycle puzzles!

Annabelle writing letters in the sand: m for mommy!

Paige carefully stringing beads!

Jadis having lots of fun with our new Moon Sand work in the sensory table!

Davis sifting for marbles!

Selby transferring water with a turkey baster!

Sophia composing numbers (in the thousands) with the golden beads!!!

Brooke composing numbers (in the thousands) with the golden beads!!!

Ian working with chopsticks!

"The hand is the instrument of the mind..." Joey working with play dough!

Lots of spheres...

It feels cool and squishy on my face too...

Ian working with the clothes pins...

Davis the scientist...

Rushil scooping moon sand ice cream!

Brooke's numbers she built!!!

Our new VERY tall sand wheel!!!

How fast can it go???

Max playing in the shade...

Joey chilling in the shade!

Rowan hanging from our new moon climber. THANK YOU to the Leming family for donating this to MGA!!!

Ian hanging too!

Rushil and Luke touching sharks at the Zoo!

Best buds Brooke and Jordyn in front of the seals!

Best buds Rushil and Luke in front of the seals!

A lizard at the zoo...

Please mom! Not another picture!!!

Luke operating the snake jaws!!!

Selby and Annabelle! Brave and bold on the climber together!

Reading!!! All by themselves!!! Brooke and Sophia devour some good books!

Sophia enjoying a Starfall phonetic reader and Brooke enjoying a Sight Word reader! We work with both phonics and sight words to help the children develop reading fluency!

Davis working with a Magnetic/Not Magnetic Science experiment. He has made a cool sculpture on the magnet with all of the magnetic items!

Jadis describing the colors she used in her painting!

Max "attacking" his artwork with glue!

Jack combining different mediums (crayons and a paper punch) to create art!

Paige using the paper punch to punch out hearts. She loves to make little hearts! (She also loved the cottage cheese we had for snack!)

Luke sorting the pieces for our new 48 piece Solar System Floor Puzzle.

Max and Rushil building the solar system puzzle together!

"Ms. Sophia" giving Ian a lesson with the sandpaper letters. She is such a wonderful teacher and Ian is SO engaged in her lesson! This is the beauty of the mixed age classroom!!!

Luke showing his excitement: the solar system is almost complete!

Evan making a gorgeous collage with mosaic pieces. Jack watches intently... And thank you SO much to Ian for the gorgeous Sunflowers! They have really brightened up our classroom this week!!!

Now Jack makes his own mosaic!!!

Evan continuing his mosaic work. This is great fine motor practice!

Selby watercolor painting!

Max laying out the vehicle on the land, air, and water mat. He LOVES working with vehicles!!!

Evan putting his full concentration into the string cutting work.

Baker doing the Magnetic/Not Magnetic work

Selby's beautiful smile!

Selby practicing writing her numbers!

Rushil doing the new life cycle of the frog puzzle from Joey. Thank you SO much Joey for giving our class these beautiful puzzles! Happy 4th Birthday Joey!!!

Brooke making a gorgeous collage!

Jack working hard on the hundreds board.

Paige enjoying "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake."

Evan spelling with the moveable alphabet!

Selby chillin' in the reading corner!

Paige chillin' in the reading corner!

Sophia practicing writing her numbers!

Evan spelling more words with the moveable alphabet!

Jacob enjoying the Matriska work! He is visiting from the Aster Class and will be joining our class soon!

Alex refining his fine motor skills with the medicine dropper water transfer work!

Molly relaxing with the opening and closing containers work.

A Pink Tower and Brown Stair Extension built collaboratively!

Evan is excited to be spelling with the moveable alphabet!

Zoe found a constellation book upstairs in the library. She brought it down to class and drew many of the constellations!

Luke brought in a very interesting dinosaur encyclopedia. He is sharing it with Rushil and Jack!

Max is building the United States puzzle! He knows where Indiana is and where North Carolina is too (his brother and sister live there)!

This week in Kindergarten, we read "The Dot" http://www.amazon.com/James-Excellence-Childrens-Literature-Awards/dp/0763619612 and then we explored different ways of making lines. The students got very creative!!!

Paige carefully gluing gems onto her collage!

Davis building with foam blocks!

Mia is exploding into writing! Here she is making a list of her friends by looking at their names on their drawers!

Brooke learning about even and odd numbers with the cards and counters!

Annabelle sponge painting. I love how she put the apron on all by herself...

Paige working with the screwdriver.

Evan admiring his bead stringing work!

Selby singing the letter sound song with me!

Max drawing an 'M' for Max in the sand tray while Ian "watches."

Writing practice...

Paige enjoying an afternoon snack. She has gotten very good at spreading her own cream cheese!

Ms. Sophia reading a book about frogs to Paige.

Rowan showing off the gorgeous necklace Brooke made for her!

Rowan doing addition with the miniature red and blue rods! I LOVE this work!

We had a fantastic turnout at Grandparents Day! Thank you SO much to all of the Grandparents and Special Guests who attended!!!

Evan showing his Grandpa how good his has gotten at stringing beads!

Davis found an Easter Egg!

Jack showing his Grandma and Aunt the shapes puzzle!

Baker showing his Grandma how he sorts vehicles!

Joey showing Grandpa what he can build with foam blocks!

 

Ruby showing Grandma and Grandpa how she can match cultural objects to the continents where they come from!

Rowan showing Grandma and Grandpa how she is spelling with the moveable alphabet!

Rian showing Grandpa and Grandma how he uses the screwdriver!

Annabelle enjoying a snack!

Luke showing off his building skills to Grandma!

Zoe's Grandma was so sweet to "adopt" Rushil for the day- his grandparents are in India!

Jadis showing Grandma how she is writing with the metal insets!

Joey showing his Grandpa the pin transfer work!

Mia showing her grandpa how she works with the colored bead stair (1-10)!

Sophia showing Grandma how she transfers water with a sponge!

Max showing Grandma and Grandpa his art at the light table!

Annabelle showing Grandma how she does the pin poking work!

Our new friend Rian working on the Hundreds Board! Welcome to the Sunflower Class Rian!

Brooke is now able to read books from the library! WOW!!!

This is our new friend Selby checking out our parakeet Jewel (Jewel is checking her out too!). Welcome to the Sunflower Class Selby!

Jadis hunting for wooden Easter eggs in the sensory table! She found a pink one to match her outfit!

What focus! Jack is stringing tiny beads to make a necklace!

Ruby exploring the land, air, and water animals!

Paige pin poking South America. This is helping her develop her fine motor skills and concentration!

Joey is SO excited about letter sounds! He is matching objects to their initial sounds: "Mitten starts with mmm."

Selby pouring hearts!

Jack building with foam blocks!

Rian is proud to show me the picture he designed and hammered with the geometric board!

Joey laughing at a funny part in the book!

Rian building with foam blocks!

Evan stringing beads. He has been INCREDIBLY focused on this work this week!

Mia creating very beautiful and original collage art at the light table!

The beauty of the mixed age classroom: Mia is giving Selby a lesson on the land, air, and water mat!

You are a great teacher Mia!

Brooke doing the pin transfer work. She has been making beautiful designs with the pins as she returns them to the pin cushion!

Sophia working with the metal insets!

Really Ms. Jamie, another picture....

Rushil tracing a sandpaper letter!

Selby transferring pom poms with the tongs!

This week in Kindergarten, we read "Diary of a Worm." We have been writing in our very own diaries each day too! Here is Brooke writing in her diary!

Molly sorting vehicles!

Luke building with TWIG blocks! A mathematical mind at work...

Zoe stacking 11 thousand cubes. 11,000 is a large number!!!

Zoe composing numbers with the golden beads.

11,427! WOW Zoe!

Molly building the constructive triangles!

Selby pouring water! What a gorgeous smile!

Joey working hard on his letter sounds again! This time he is matching pictures to their initial sound!

Reading the Thunder Cake recipe...

Sophia measuring the flour...

Molly mixing wet ingredients...

Sophia mixing...

Lucas using the hand mixer to whip egg whites!

Rushil using the electric mixer!

Zoe mixing!

Alex mixing!

Lucas mixing!

Here is Kiki enjoying her Thunder cake!

Rowan frosting her Thunder Cake!

Joey frosting his Thunder Cake!

Brooke learned to tie her shoes this week! She has been a big help to me and Ms. Mhel, tying her friend's shoes too!

Lucas and Rushil have been very busy this week, tracing and pin poking all the shapes in the shape puzzle!

Our two new tadpoles! We set up their habitat and we will be watching them grow into frogs! Hopefully they will not change too much over Spring Break!

Mia, Baker, and Davis observing how our tomato seeds have sprouted into plants!!!

Seedlings! Thanks so much to Sophia's family for donating this mini greenhouse!

Jadis exploring a new kind of paintbrush at the easel!

Max, taking a break from his art to relax on a soft warm rug in the sun!

Paige enjoying the new glitter art job!

Chinmayi working with the numbered vehicle puzzle!

Mia building the teen numbers: "ten and three make thirteen."

Davis exploring physics with a marble and the brown stair...

Sophia and Chinmayi: Best Buddies!

Luke and Rushil playing a guessing game with the geometric solids!

"Is it the rectangular prism?"

Lucas and Davis had great conversations about these "What is Wrong with This Picture?" cards!

 

Joey (and most of the boys!) really love this new vehicle sorting work I bought at the Montessori Conference last weekend!

Mia working with a new set of sentence comprehension cards!

Evan pin poking a star! This is great for developing fine motor control and concentration!

Chinmayi working with the colored bead stair!

Paige loves "fishing" for cars!

On Thursday, Jadis was absent because her brother was sick and Mia missed her terribly. Mia wrote her this letter ALL BY HERSELF! AMAZING!!!

Kiki driving construction vehicles in our rice filled sensory table!

Jack painting his sculpture...

Jack admiring his work!

Mia painting her butterfly purple!

Lucas painting his butterfly...

Mia- what a joyful artist!

Rushil's 5th Birthday!!! He is rotating our candle "sun" 5 times!

Rushil passing out his birthday treats!

Joey matching animals to the continents where they live. He had to pull out the other frilled lizard to go on Australia too! WOW Joey!!!

Ruby gluing a collage of items collated from nature!

Jadis transferring pins from a pin cushion to a salt shaker. She made a lovely design on the pin cushion. You are so creative Jadis!

Luke about to perform a physics experiment with a marble and the brown stair...

Rushil building with mini pipes!

Davis transferring water with the turkey baster. What a ham!

Joey writing in the sand tray!

Jadis doing the left/right perceptual puzzle board!

Jack stringing beads! He has really been working SO hard on developing his fine motor skills!

Brooke's final drawer of the blue series- reading word cards.

Brooke with all the words we read together- she read the words on the left, and I read the words on the right. She is so proud of her hard work!

Sophia's work of matching word cards to their photo!

Max and Baker chilling in the reading corner...

Max enjoying exploring airplanes and "clouds" (cotton balls) in the sensory table!

Jadis and Mia playing a blindfold guessing game with the geometric solids!

 

Jadis is figuring out that both the rectangular prism and the square based pyramid have a square base!

"Is it the rectangular prism?"

Max has been very interested in our new Atlas! Thanks SO much to Janet Phelps for the great new books, chalkboards, whiteboards, and various art supplies!!!

Evan and Ian reading "All About Me" books together!

Max looking at another page of the Atlas!

Ruby working on the continent map!

Max digging in the sand!

Jack burying his feet in the sand!

Annabelle and Jack on top of the climber!

Jack driving the car!

Nature Explorers....

Ms. Mhel reading "The Z Was Zapped" to Joey- this book has been very popular in our classroom this week!

Jadis has been even more excited about the table cleaning work since we added this new scrub brush!

Ruby using her incredible imagination with the penguins in the sensory table!

Mia working on some Van Gogh art!

Luke deep in thought over his detailed picture...

Zoe and Brooke made their own maps by tracing the continent puzzle pieces and then coloring them in. WOW!

Max building a tower.

Oh no! The tower fell down!

Joey coloring a Van Gogh painting!

Sophia taking a moment to help Ian. What a good friend!

Rushil building the teen numbers. Ten and eight makes eighteen!

Mia reading sentence cards and "acting out" each sentence with tiny objects!

Mia spelling short phonetic words with the moveable alphabet!

Sophia very proud of her cards and counters work!

Zoe, very focused on grading colors from darkest to lightest!

Joey and Max showing off their penguin finger puppets!

Paige showing off her penguin finger puppets!

Jack reading sight word books! AMAZING!

Brooke spelling words with silent "e!"

More silent "e" words!

Davis working hard on the tangram puzzles!

 

Chinmayi, very focused on writing her letters!

Ian spelling with the moveable alphabet!

Paige doing the ribbon cutting work!

Max cutting play dough!

Jadis getting very creative with the collage work!

Davis and Evan love to "race" to see who can get all the screws in the quickest!

Brooke did an incredible job with the hundreds board this week!

Kiki making her own orange juice!

Luke making a collage!

Brooke doing the hundreds board again!

Kiki doing the ink stamping work at the light table...

Max and Rushil drawing together at the light table...

Addison hammering an interesting geometric pattern!

Enjoying a gorgeous day outside!

Queens of the hill!

Up on the big rock!

The coy pond!

Ruby checking out the fish!

Enjoying a moment by the pond!