If you’d like to see her sculpture and vote to support her, click on Contact at this link:  http://nanacampos.artistswanted.org/atts2012#.T6oR_kW4y-Q.facebook

Even as more American children are getting immunized against measles, diphtheria and other diseases, public-health officials are increasingly worried about potential outbreaks of these illnesses in certain pockets of the country where vaccination rates are dangerously low.
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Health experts say a community needs about 95% of its citizens to be immunized against measles to ensure herd immunity, where vaccinating a large percentage of a population keeps even unvaccinated people from getting the disease. Even people who aren’t vaccinated, such as newborns, get some protection from herd immunity as the disease remains limited to a small part of the community. Measles is a highly contagious respiratory condition that can lead to encephalitis, pneumonia and death. Other diseases, depending on how contagious they are, require other rates of immunization for a community to benefit. For mumps, 88% need to be immunized, and for chickenpox and polio the rate is 90%.

As a licensed NJ child care center, The Montessori House requires parents to comply with NJ immunization requirements.  You can find out more in this Q&A and this Chart of NJ Immunization Requirements.

Please bring in your bottle caps (the plastic screw caps from drink bottles are great) and deposit them in the box Diana has left by the front door. 

You can see examples here.  Thanks in advance to you and to Diana for putting it all together!

Starting the morning of Thursday, September 22, teachers will permit viewing shortly after classes begin.  We have two cameras each for the East and South classrooms, and a single camera for the Stepping Stones classroom.  All cameras allow for remote control to pan, tilt and zoom: you may view almost any part of the room and zoom in for a close-up picture. 

Please be gentle with the equipment (especially the pan/tilt controls) and understand that each camera has limits to its viewing area: please do not try to force the cameras beyond these limits. 

Finally, if other parents are waiting to control the camera, our informal rule asks that you cede control of the camera to the next waiting parent after five minutes.  You may continue to view your child’s class, but allow the next parent to choose the camera’s focus.

If you encounter problems with the equipment or have other questions, please let Anne Marie know.

No doubt children will enjoy and learn in any one of these programs.  We’ve already received several enrollments in each program, but still have space for more students.  Remember, these classes start the first week of October.   However, After Care is available starting next week (Monday September 19) – please remember to fund your After Care account.  

If you’d like more information, look in the Parents section of the website, under Downloads (log-on required) — there you’ll find a description of all the after school programs, including enrollment forms.  (You can also pick up enrollment forms from the office).   Of course, if you have questions, please e-mail them to us at contact@themontessorihouse.com.

Correction:the enrollment form for Piano says there’s a limit of three (3) students in the program.  The limit is three (3) students per session, but we can accommodate 4 sessions, so a total of 12 students.

Parents may want to put the following dates on their calendars for next week.

• Meet the Teachers Night
  Tuesday, September 13, 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. (parents only please)
  Refreshments provided
• After-School Programs Open House
  Wednesday, September 14, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  Piano, Mandarin, Violin and After Care
  Email sent with all the details and enrollment forms
• Optional Information Meeting on Volunteer Committees
  Thursday, September 15, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m.
  Register on-line in the Parents section.
  On-line you’ll find details on all the committees. 
  Email sent with information and instructions for on-line registration.

Local conditions vary; parents, please exercise caution planning your time and route to school today.  Feel free to keep your children at home, arrive late, or pick up early,  if that is your best, safest course of action.

For those parents who RSVP’d for the group sessions, we’ll be in touch to schedule one-on-one conversations with Ms. Maria (possibly this Thursday after school or in the early evening, for parents who’ve already set aside the time on their schedule).

Thanks, The Montessori House

Fewer Children May Be Diagnosed as Doctors Told Not to Rely Solely on Standard Skin and Blood Tests

Parents who have eliminated foods from their children’s diets based on allergy tests alone may find that some are safe to eat after all.

The National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases issued the first clinical guidelines for diagnosing and treating food allergies Monday, saying that blood or skin tests aren’t sufficient when making a diagnosis.

An allergy should be suspected if someone has a reaction within minutes or hours of eating a food, according to the guidelines. Physicians should then take a detailed medical history, conduct a physical exam and confirm the allergy with a skin-prick test, in which tiny drops of the suspected allergen are pricked into the skin, usually in the forearm, to see if red wheals form. None of those steps is definitive by itself, the recommendations say, which will likely to lead to fewer diagnoses.

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Medical history is the most important key to a diagnosis, experts say. “The major piece of the puzzle is what happened? What did they eat and when? How long was it between eating and having symptoms? What else was going on?” says A. Wesley Burks, chief of pediatric allergy and immunology at Duke University Medical Center and another author of the guidelines. In the real world, it’s often far from clear which of dozens of different foods a child eats during the day, or what unknown ingredient in a restaurant meal, may have set off a reaction. That’s why the guidelines also call for using a skin-prick test to verify that the patient does have an immune reaction to a suspected food.

In more than 50% of cases, the report notes, the presumed food allergy isn’t a real allergy. A different food could be responsible, or there could be some other cause entirely, particularly with gastrointestinal symptoms.

From Smart Money

2 Child-Care Tax Breaks So You Can Go to Work

As many parents know, it can cost money to go to work. Those with kids under the age of 13 may have to set aside a little extra for childcare expenses. Fortunately, a federal income tax credit can help pay the bill. It’s available to all eligible parents, regardless of their income (although lower-income folks get bigger credits).

You might also be eligible for your employer’s childcare flexible spending account plan. When the FSA deal is available, it can be a bigger tax-saver than the credit.

Here’s what you need to know about both breaks…