On Monday, October 8, 2012 (Columbus Day), all Montessori classes are in session on the usual schedule.

Many school in NJ are in session.  Here’s a quick sampling:

• Tenafly Public
• Cresskill Public (minimum day)
• Paramus Public (minimum day)
• Elizabeth Morrow
• Bergen Academies
• Oakland Public

In fact, The Montessori House will be open Monday-Friday on the regular schedule all of October; the next holiday with a school closing is Thanksgiving — school is closed November 21, 22, 23 (Wed. Thur. Friday).

If you haven’t settled on a school for your child 2 to 4 years old, we still have a handful of openings for 2012-13:

1. For children age 3 or 4 before October 1, 2012, we have openings in the afternoon session of our half-day Pre-Primary Montessori program (M-F, 12:15 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. with after school classes and After Care available until 6:00 p.m. ).   Tuition for the full year is $8,200.
2. For children who turn age 3 after October 1, 2012 and before April 1, 2013, we have openings in our half-day Montessori Stepping Stones program (early session meets 8:45 to 11:15 a.m., late session meets 11:45 a.m. to 2:15 p.m.).  We only accept children once they turn 2-1/2.  If your child starts during the school year (say, in January), then you will pay a reduced, pro-rated tuition, based on the number of days the program meets during the school year — full-year tuition is $9,300, pro-rated tuition from January 1 is $6,500.

Children who enroll at The Montessori House for 2012-13 will receive placement in the program of their choice for 2013-14.

If you would like to enroll your child for 2012-13 or have questions, please contact us at 201-816-8343 or at admissions@themontessorihouse.com.

The Montessori House has started the process of enrolling students for the 2012-13 school year.  

Since we fill up our full-day and morning sessions first., we urge families to submit their application for 2012-13 soon, especially if interested in a program that offers a full-day or morning session.  These include our full-day Kindergarten (age 5-6) and full-day Pre-Primary plus Enrichment  (age 3-4) sessions, and our morning Pre-Primary (age 3-4) and morning Stepping Stones (age 2.5-3) sessions.

We’ve already offered 2012-13 placement to families with children currently at The Montessori House, and these families have until January 10, 2012 to provide us a reservation tuition deposit for their preferred 2012-13 program. 

Shortly after January 10, 2012 we’ll start to offer placement to new applicants, more or less in the order paid applications were received at the school.   As with our current families, we ask new applicants to confirm their preferred session and provide us a reservation tution deposit to hold a 2012-13 place for their child. 

At some point in the admissions process, our Director likes to become personally acquainted with new applicants.  Sometimes these meetings take place before an enrollment offer is made, and sometimes after.  We start to schedule these meetings in Janaury. 

We continue to offer placement in a session until that session is filled, at which point we’ll start a session wait list.  A family may choose to enroll in an alternate session, but still join the wait list for their preferred session.  

Again, we urge families interested in 2012-13 to submit an application soon, as we expect some sessions will fill up very quickly. 

For more information please contact us at admissions@themontessorihouse.com or call 201-816-8343.

Diana M. (chair of the Art Appreciation Committee) will be preparing a presentation on George Seurat for March.  She’s planning to do a movable mosaic as part of the unit.  However, she needs your help!

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!

Power has been restored to The Montessori House and school reopens on the regular schedule, Wednesday, November 2nd.

First, the parking lot is closed on the Knickerbocker Rd. side, as is the regular entrance to The Montessori House and the playground. These are closed pending tree trimming and clean-up, which we hope to complete this week. In the meantime, please enter the school through the Church/Tween Tot door off the east side of the parking lot closest to Riveredge. Note, Parent Visitation continues as scheduled, with this week’s Monday and Tuesday visits rescheduled for next week (Monday and Tuesday with the same appointment times).

Finally, we have moved the deadlines for tuition payment, school picture orders, and Scholastic book orders, all to Friday, November 4th.

The Nutrition Committee has been hard at work since mid-September serving tasty, healthy, and interesting daily snacks to all the children at The Montessori House.  Committee members generally each take a week of “snack duty”; “snack duty” rotates among committee members. 

Here’s what Polly provided the week of October 17th.  

• Monday: water crackers and provolone cheese, a bag of apples and yogurt, water crackers
• Tuesday: pear raisin bread pudding, raisins in mini box
• Wednesday: sweet potato puree with carrot and celery sticks
• Thursday: veggie sushi platter (from Mr. WOK)
• Friday: banana bread, banana

This week Clara brought us: bananas, popcorn chips, vegi platter, hummus, and organic applesauce.  And the Nutrition Committee also helped the children prepare pumpkin smoothies. 

We wonder what Benita will bring us next week!

If you’d like to sign-up for “snack duty”, join the Nutrition Committee via the Parents section of the website.

Sorry we’re so late with this, but we had a wonderful Fall Festival at The Montessori House on October 15!.  Thanks to the entire Special Events Committee and Committee Chair Celia P.

And thanks to all the Montessori House families who brought wonderful things to eat and drink, who helped set up the festival, supervise the kids’ activities, and helped clean-up at the end.

The Farmer’s Market raised enough money to donate through Heifer International the following animals: 

chickens, ducks and honeybees!

Thanks!

Just wanted to let our families know that The Montessori House is fine in the wake of Irene.   The playground’s a bit messy, but no worse than most people’s yards.  It should all be ship shape by the time teachers come on Sept. 6 and students on Sept. 12.  In fact, you’ll see that the parking lot has been patched, sealed, and re-striped!
We’ll see you in September!

Welcome to the over 80 families enrolled at The Montessori House for 2011-12.  Most of our sessions are full and have a wait list.  We still have a handful of openings in our Stepping stones program for children born after July 1, 2008.  If you’re interested please call or e-mail.

If your child is older, call us joining the wait list (your application will carry over for 2012-13. 

We continue to offer school tours until students arrive in September.  If you’d like to see the school “in action” (with students and teachers in the classroom), tours of the school will start again in October.  You may call for an appointment and also to join our mailing list so that we can keep you informed about our enrollment calendar for 2012-13.

Many of you attended our 2011 Summer Camp and enjoyed 5 weeks of fun and excitement.  Our themes this year included: The Silk Road, Tomie diPaola, The Nile, The Amazon Rain Forest, and US Westward Expansion! 

Some of the activities included:

• Chase by a grizzly bear.
• Painting a house.
• Trading on the Silk Road.
• Riding a Nile crocodile.
• Collecting nuts in the rain forest.

Luckily we had beautiful weather, so we could enjoy The Beach every day!

 Thanks to Ms. Hillarie, Ms. Deepthi, Ms. Christine and Ms. Maria, as well as to all our volunteers — Sydney, Morgan, Elle, Maxine, Maxie, Liel, Hailey, Isabelle, Madeline, Anne Maire, Olivia, and Isabella.