Food!  Glorious Food!

A year-end Montessori House tradition has the graduating Kindergarten/1st Grade students bring a favorite food to the All-School Party following their graduation ceremony.  Each K/1st student brings 15 to 20 servings of their favorite food — the school provides plates, napkins, drinks, and additional refreshments.

We’ve asked the K/1st families to let us know what food their graduates have chosen.  Here’s a sneak peek that we’ll keep updated as families report in:

• White pasta and
  Fruit platter with colorful fruits
• Korean rice cake (Dukbokgi)
• Fruit and veggie platter
  Cookies (from la promenade)
  Drink -maybe lemonade
• Jab Chea will include (glass Noodle, spinach, onion, mushroom, beef, carrot)
• Empanadas (from Noches de Colombia)
• Chocolate chip pancakes
  Cranberry apple juice
• Chicken nuggets and cookies
• Chicken nuggets (Baumgarts)
• Baked ziti and bagels

Friday, January 7th, 9 a.m. Graduation, 10 a.m. All-School Party

Hurry over to State Line Lookout in Palisades Interstate Park in Alpine NJ this Sunday for Hawks Over the Hudson.  At 1:00 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. you can get up close and personal with live hawks, eagles, owls, and falcons.
More information: http://www.natureprogram.org/pdfs/hawksHudson.pdf

For more earth science, on October 8th just head a little further north to Palisades, NY for Columbia U Lamont-Doherty Observatory open house.
More information: http://openhouse.ldeo.columbia.edu/

A great opportunity to introduce children of all ages (and adults) to the exciting science going on right next door.  In grade school Ms. Maria’s children loved the Lamont Open House, and her older daughter, Isabella, has been working on a research team at Lamont since 2014!

$450 — Winning Bid!  THANKS from Friends of Montessori Foundation

The Montessori House is open today on the usual schedule.

Conditions vary locally.  Parents should use their judgment and feel free to keep children home, come to school late, or pick up early, as they see fit.

If children arrive late or leave early, please be patient, as it may take some time to respond to your request.

Due to weather, The Montessori House will be closed Tuesday, January 27th.

We expect to re-open Wednesday, January 28th on the usual schedule

If our plans for Wednesday change, we will update our website, and our phone message.  Please note, if we lose power we may not be able to update the website.  For the latest information on Wednesday plans, please check our phone message after 7 a.m. on Wednesday  (201-816-8343). 

Finally, even if the school opens Wednesday, parents should evaluate their unique snow and transportation situation and should feel free to keep children at home.

We hope all families are safe.

You can find our Preliminary 2014-15  School Calendar here.

Here are the days students are not at school from September 2014 to June 2015:

Sept 1 – 5
Sept 8 – 11 (see individual student phase-in schedule)
Returning students come to school Sept 12 only
New students come partial days this week
Sept 25 – 26
November 6 – 7
November 26 – 28
December 11—12 (Kindergarten/1st Grade half-day on December 11 &12)
December 21 – 31
January 1—5
January 19
February 13 – 20
April 2 – 12
May 25
June 4 – 5 (Kindergarten/1st Grade half-day on June 4 & 5)
June 11 Teacher Work day
June 12 (special Graduation Day schedule)

With more than 50 programs and services available for New Jersey residents living with epilepsy, autism, developmental disabilities and chronic illness, The Family Resource Network (FRN) and its affiliates have been affecting lives of thousands of families across New Jersey for the past 41 years.

We thought parents might be interested in this public campaign on child development.

• See milestones that children should reach from 2 months to 5 years of age, plus interactive tools to help keep track of the milestones.
• Here’s the Families page (there are also pages for educators, health provider, etc.)

Here’s the program announcement we received:

As many as one in four children from birth to age 5 is at risk of developmental delay or behavioral challenges. To promote healthy development and early identification of these issues, several federal have partnered to launch a public outreach campaign highlighting the importance of universal developmental and behavioral screening, and support for young children.

The campaign’s mission is to:

• Promote universal screening.
• Identify possible delays and behavioral issues in any child setting.
• Enhance developmental supports for children.
• Offer resources for professionals working with children.

These resources include screening tools, user guides for different audiences (including behavioral health providers), and an array of online resources for providers and parents.

Learn More About Birth to 5: Watch Me Thrive!

The Wall Street Journal had a fun article on school lunches, and how parents cope with the rules different schools have.  Several of the rules will resonate for Montessori House families whose children pack a lunch for school.   Some of our rules include:

• No nuts — no ground nuts (e.g. peanuts) or tree nuts (e.g. walnuts, pecans, filberts, almonds, etc. )
• No drinks (including drinkable yogurts)
• No sweetened foods (no candy, cookies, cakes, fruit roll-ups, etc. )
• We can reheat food (in a microwave), but do not cook food or thaw frozen food (in other words we microwave for no more than 1 minute).

We do take issue with the reporter’s endorsement of lunchboxes that come with many components — “bento-style” lunch “systems”).  We’ve found that these lunch “systems” simply occupy too much space.  Normally we have four (4) children  at a table for lunch, but when a child has an expansive “system” of boxes, etc. they require twice as much space, so at a table for four we can fit only 2 normal lunchboxes plus one lunch “system”, or only two children with such a lunch “system”.  Consequently we recommend parents stick with a regular lunch box or bag that requires a normal amount of table-top space.