This week Ms. Maria continued Zoom sessions for all The Montessori House students learning at home.  She made a few changes based on our recent survey of parents.  Ms. Maria She continued with several formats for at home learning (see Zoom Primer for Parents), including another  Science Demonstration, Show & Do Cooking at Home, and Follow the Leader (movement and songs), as well as several book readings.

Each week, we’ll post links to video recordings of select sessions.   For this week:

Tuesday May 5:

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This week Ms. Maria continued Zoom sessions for all The Montessori House students learning at home.  She introduced several new formats for at home learning (see Zoom Primer for Parents), including a Science Demonstration, Show & Do Cooking at Home, and Follow the Leader (movement and songs).

Each week, we’ll post links to video recordings of select sessions.   For this week: (more…)

We wanted to provide our Montessori House families information on our Zoom sessions, to help make them fun and productive for students who attend.  We have multiple formats for Zoom sessions — some require preparation for children to participate (for example if we do food preparation together, you’ll need to gather ingredients ahead of time),  others are intended to teach students how to do a project on their own after the session (with parents’ help of course, for example a science experiment), and many have little or no preparation or follow up.   If a session is aimed at older students (e.g. Kindergarten) or younger students (under age 4), we’ll let parents know.  Below you’ll find a chart of our different session formats (note, certain formats may have no limit on participants, while others are intended for a limited, small group of students).  Following the chart is further information and a few pointers for parents to make our Zoom session with your children fun and successful.

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This week Ms. Maria started Zoom sessions for all The Montessori House students learning at home.  On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday (Apr 22-24), she read storybooks for younger and older students, and held three show & tell sessions (My Favorite Stuffed Animal).  We had over 50 children participate in one or more sessions, with enthusiastic feedback from our Montessori House families.

Next week, Ms. Maria will introduce new material and read a few more books.  Parents receive an email invitation to register for the session Ms. Maria offers (some have a limit on attendees).

Each week, we’ll post links to video recordings of select sessions.   For this week:

1. Ms. Maria reads three books  most appropriate for younger children up to age 4 (older children may enjoy too).
   Froggy Gets Dressed, Froggy Learns to Swim, Froggy’s Sleepover, all three by Jonathan London.
2. Ms. Maria reads two books most appropriate for children older than age 4 (the vocabulary and story’s are more complicated, but younger children may enjoy too).
   Some Birthday by Patricia Polacco and Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann

Look for future posts about Ms. Maria on Zoom.

P.S.  This was our schedule for Apr 22- 24:

To help parents make this home-bound time tolerable for all members of the family, and to keep their young children productively engaged and active, our Director — Ms. Maria Morningstar — has started a series called “At Home“.  The series is published in our website NEWS section.  Since they’re published using a blog, chapters appear in reverse order, with the most recent At Home the top entry.  Each chapter starts out with a short introduction and you then click on “Read the rest of this entry>>” to see the entire post,

Here’s what we’ve published so far (with links to each full chapter):

• At Home #1: Words We Use At School
• At Home #2: Our Daily School Schedule
• At Home #3: Giving Lessons
• At Home #4: About Handwriting
• At Home #5: Creating Your Child’s Work Area
• At Home #6: Practical Life (PL) (with many embedded links to examples and suggestions for works)
• At Home #7: Don’t and Do for Beginner Readers
• At Home #8: Zoom Sessions with Ms. Maria (Apr 22-24) (with links to session videos)
• At Home #9: Montessori House Zoom: Primer for Parents
• At Home #10: Zoom Sessions with Ms. Maria (Apr 28-30) (with links to session videos)
• At Home #11: Zoom Sessions with Ms. Maria (May 5-7) (with links to session videos)
• At Home #12: Zoom Sessions with Ms. Maria (May 12-14) (with links to session videos)
• At Home #13: Zoom Sessions with Ms. Maria (May 19-21) (with links to session videos)
• At Home #14: Zoom Sessions with Ms. Maria (May 26-28) (with links to session videos)

P.S.  If you’d like to take a video break with your children, Ms. Maria has a few recent posts with bunnies and dogs.

• Bunnies Everywhere
• Things are Hopping
• Ms. Maria’s Dogs’ Adventures
• Dogs at the Beach

UPDATE 3/17/20:  NJ DCF issued a clarification of  their guidance from yesterday.   It opens as follows:

“The Department of Children and Families reminds childcare providers that the state has not
directed that they cease operation as a result of the current novel coronavirus (COVID-19)
outbreak.”

New Jersey Governor Murphy has ordered extraordinary measures to mitigate the spread and threat of Covid-19 in the state.  Chief among these is the order to close all K-12 schools (public, private, parochial) for at least two weeks starting this Wednesday.  Other key features of the order include restricting most businesses to daytime hours, eliminating on-site service at restaurants, and mandating that any gathering in the state number 50 people or fewer

For The Montessori House, the salient fact is that this order does not apply to childcare centers.  We won’t speculate on the rationale for the different treatment of schools and childcare centers, except to say that there are sound reasons for the distinction.

We’ve received guidance from state officials through  a few sources.  A release from Senator Loretta Weinberg states explicitly that,“As of now daycares are not included”.   Also the NJ Dept of Children and Families (DCF), which regulates all early childhood providers, issued guidance today encouraging providers like The Montessori House School to keep their doors open — on a short-term basis they’ve relaxed select regulations to enable providers to both stay open and stay in compliance.   Finally, we’ve communicated with others in the early childhood education industry who have spoken with the Governor’s office and they were told the order to close does not apply to childcare centers.  (Note, the order’s reference to PreK appears to refer only to such programs hosted in K-12 schools.)

At The Montessori House School our regular teaching staff is available and committed to providing our families the option of safe, high-quality care and early childhood education.  We’ve put in place procedures to limit the risk to students and staff of Covid-19 infection while at school, and we re-evaluate daily if further changes would be beneficial.

We know that with school-age siblings now learning at home, and parents working at home, that many of families will prefer to keep their Montessori House student home too.  We want our Montessori House families to know that, if their situation changes, we’re focused on having available the childcare they may need.

 

As long as it’s feasible and prudent to do so, The Montessori House will remain open to provide safe, high-quality care and education for those families who are prepared to have their children spend their days with us .

Of course, as primary and secondary schools close and parents work from home, many families are choosing to keep their Montessori House students at home.  These days our classrooms have their lowest student-to-teacher ratios in recent memory!

Given the light attendance, the fact that after-school classes have met only one time, and that we asked parents to enroll and pay for classes as the Covid-19 threat was emerging, we will cancel immediately all after-school classes for this spring trimester (starting today, Monday) and provide all families a 100% refundable credit for their spring trimester fees.

The Montessori House remains open and available for our families’ child care needs.  We’ve been paying close attention to developments in our area, and to the recommendations and requirements for early childhood centers provided by the NJ Department of Children and Families, and the Department of Health.

As we communicated earlier, when students are at the school, we’re restricting who may enter the school building.  Basically, no one may enter other than students and staff.  As a result, we’ve posted at our door the following new Montessori House procedures.

Please let anyone who drops off or picks up students at the school know what to expect starting today, Monday, March 16th.

Montessori House Procedures Regarding Covid-19

Until further notice, please note the following new procedures:

• We will dismiss children ONLY from the playground, via car line (if raining), or outside this door for all occasions, including regular school dismissal, early pick-up, after care, and after-school classes.
• We will NOT be opening the door for anyone other than Montessori House staff and enrolled children to enter.  When you ring the bell, a teacher will come to the door as needed.  This may take a few minutes, so we thank you in advance for your patience.
• Teachers will maintain a distance from parents/caregivers, so please do not ask them to have a conversation.  Feel free to contact us via text (201-816-8343, which goes to Anne Marie, Maria, and Tony) or email (maria@themontessorihouse, which goes only to Maria).
• Parents and caregivers (and accompanying siblings) waiting with or for their children should keep their distance from others while waiting.  Also, you must hold your child’s hand the entire time going between the school and your car.

Thanks for your cooperation.  We’ll continue to keep you posted regarding changes as we all respond to new developments.

Dear Montessori House Families:

First, thanks for the feedback many of you provided me regarding our decision to keep The Montessori House open, even as Bergen County public schools close and move on-line.  Let me say again: parents are best positioned to decide what’s best for their children, and with the Covid-19 situation constantly evolving, we understand the need to re-evaluate every day.

Today we participated in a webinar hosted by the NJ Dept of Children and Families  — Office of Licensing (OOL), and the NJ Department of Health (DoH).  There appeared to be over 500 participants from childcare centers (CCC) across the state.  (CCCs include any facility that provides care for children up through Kindergarten, from in-home daycare to schools like The Montessori House, and we are licensed by the OOL.)

Here were our key “take-aways” from the call, most of which came in the Questions & Answer portion of the webinar:

On the call, DoH Commissioner Persichilli informed us that (as of March 12) there were 29 presumptive cases of Covid-19 in New Jersey and, sadly, one death.  Also that Governor Murphy has recommended canceling any public event of 250 people or more. The Commissioner emphasized the need for contingency planning and vigilance regarding staff and students who exhibit symptoms of respiratory infection, and the need to practice good hygiene (hand-washing and cleaning).

From both the call and the written guidance provided by OOL on March 12, it is clear that no official authority (not Federal, not State, not Local) is requiring, or even recommending, that childcare centers close.  (And, given the threshold of 250 to cancel public events, we note that the size of most public schools is in the hundreds or thousands, whereas most CCCs most often have many fewer than 100 students, including The Montessori House.  The risk profile and the trade-offs are different for CCCs vs K-12 schools.)  To date, local health officials have not provided particular guidance for CCCs in our area, and no communication about closing CCCs.

In fact the guidance from OOL, both for their contracted providers and for licensed centers (like The Montessori House), indicates that they’ll take actions to help CCCs keep their doors open.  Specifically:

D. Licensing and Regulatory Guidelines
During the State of Emergency related to the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, DCF acknowledges that flexibility around regular licensing and regulatory guidelines may be warranted and necessary, so long as such flexibility does not jeopardize the safety or wellness of children being served by the program.

In the interest of preserving operations at licensed and contracted programs that may be experiencing hardship due to meeting staffing levels, remediation timelines and other challenges exasperated by a public health emergency, issues will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis to determine if a licensing or regulatory waiver may be appropriate.

All the centers on the call want to do the right thing.  But all are challenged with balancing the needs of families for childcare with the risks to students, staff, and families posed by Covid-19, and further challenged with the changing circumstance every day.  (DoH Commissioner Persichilli said that the situation is changing by the hour!).

As Director, I face these challenges deciding the best path forward for The Montessori House, and the impact on all the families who rely on us — families of both students and staff.  Right now, you can expect us to have our doors open on Monday, and to receive an update if the situation changes.

Stay safe, stay healthy, and stay happy!

— Ms. Maria Morningstar, Director, The Montessori House School

The Montessori House School in Tenafly, NJ is accepting applications for all our programs for September 2020.

UPDATE Covid-19: The Montessori House School is closed.  However, we are available by phone, text and email to address your need for early childhood education and answer you questions.  We continue to accept applications and make placements for September 2020 and for our summer camp.

Please call or text us at 201-816-8343 or email us at admissions@themontessorihouse.com.  We’re available to answer your questions, accept your application, and complete your child’s placement and enrollment.

Summary of our enrollment process: 

We take applications throughout the year.  We’re now in a period of rolling admissions for September 2020.

We have full-day and half-day Montessori programs openings available for children born after October 15, 2013 and before May 1, 2018 including:

• For ages 5 & 6 years old: our mixed age Montessori Kindergarten program (full-day, half-day)
• For ages 30 months to 4 years old: our mixed age Montessori Pre-Primary program (full-day or half-day)

To be considered for placement, families submit a paid application (download here) and visit the school for a tour.

You can find our 2020-21 tution rates here.   But do come visit, to find out why The Montessori House is so special and a great value!

We offer tours most school days.  Tours are most informative  when the classroom is filled with students and teachers.  Consequently, we prefer to conduct tours when classes are in session.  A personal, private tour  usually take about 45 minutes, with a generous amount of time in one or two classrooms — depending on your child’s age, we will show you the program they would enter initially, but also show you the programs available in future years.

Note, if you have childcare available, you may prefer to schedule a time to visit without your child.  In our experience, visiting parents get the most from their time observing in our classrooms when they don’t have to also keep an eye on a toddler.   But, if that’s not convenient for you, we want you to visit and are happy to have your child accompany you tor a tour.

We generally schedule tours to start between 9:00 and 10:15 in the morning, or around 1:00 in the afternoon.  You may schedule a personal tour by texting/calling us at 201-816-8343.  Or, we’ll contact you: e-mail us at admissions@themontessorihouse.com with your phone number and your child’s birth date, and we’ll reach out to schedule a visit.

We urge families interested in entering September 2020 to act now: schedule a school visit and submit an application .

For more information please contact us text/call us at 201-816-8343.