Before enjoying today’s Thanksgiving Feast at The Montessori House, our families responded with great generosity last week to our Fall Food Drive.

We collected a record amount of in-kind food donations for the Center for Food Action(CFA)  in Englewood.

With the help of many parents, we had a caravan of parent cars, full of our Kindergarten/First Grade children and donations, make their way down Knickebocker Ave. to the CFA.  Once there, the children helped unload and also received a tour of the facility and some explanation of how their donations will help neighbors in need.

Thanks to all our Montesori House families for their generosity.

First, thanks to the more than 30 parents who volunteered to help with Fall Celebration this year.  Everyone had a great time!

On Tuesday October 27th all the students at The Montessori House had a chance to join in our Fall Celebration.  Parents helped us set up and operate all kinds of activities, such as Pumpkin Bowling), Tractor Driving, and Planting Spring Bulbs, plus yummy snacks.

Mother Nature graced us with a beautiful fall day (and dry weather for Monday’s set-up and Tuesday’s Celebration).

Elizabeth (mother of Lilly and Charlotte and a terrific leader for our Snack Committee) sent us a few photos, which you can see in the Parents section of the website (if you have a Parent ID/Passwordk, log on and then click on Photo Galleries, 2015 Fall Celebration is at the top of the list).

The next volunteer opportunity:  Thanksgiving Feast.  Parents will receive and e-mail with details and sign-up instructions.

Many of our teachers attended a presentation in Tenafly last week by Dr. Denise Pope (Stanford) titled “The Well-Balanced Student”.  Both the Tenafly and Cresskill public schools  sponsored the talk along with RHOWR (Rational HOmeWork Review), a group of Tenafly parents connected about the role of homework among the stressors impacting their children.

Dr. Pope is particularly interested in student voices and the students’ perspectives of school. She focuses on academic stress and its consequences for students’ mental, physical, and spiritual well-being. She authored “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001) and directed the SOS: Stressed Out Student (2003-2008) which has become Challenge Success: which focuses on strategies for healthy, engaged kids and recently published Overworked and Underprepared.

Ms. Maria thought the following points were of particular interest:

• Unstructured play time is the most important factor in developing children’s creativity, enjoyment of learning, and lifetime mental health.  Tis is true for children from pre-school through high-school.  (Play time and social time — time with no instructional purpose, not music lessons, art lessons, organized sports, tutoring, etc.)  Dr. Pope described it as part of Playtime, Downtime, Familytime (PDF), which constitute the protective factors for children (ensuring they grow up to be healthy, well-adjusted adults).
• More homework and after-school tutoring does not lead to improved learning.  In fact, some students become “robo students” who may be excellent at getting good grades  and test scores, but are disengaged, unable to solve complex problems, and unable to master 21st century skills.  Dr. Pope said, “Don’t confuse rigor with load.”  More schoolwork (load) is pointless (even detrimental) if it’s not the right kind of work (rigor).
• The importance of “successful” failure.  No one can get it right the first time, every time; certainly not if they’re really learning things that are new, important, or difficult.  To learn and develop children must have the opportunity to try, fail (without consequences), and try again until they achieve competence or mastery.  (We do just that in the Montessori classroom with our Montessori works).
• Finally, SLEEP.  Dr. Pope emphasized that the most important factor for learning and mental health is adequate sleep.  She said Kindergarten 12+hours, elementary school 11+, middle school 10+, and high school 9+.  This is every day (so night sleep plus naps), not just an average over a week.  In fact, she noted that ADD/ADHD behaviors are often the result of sleep deprivation and are easily addressed (with more sleep).

At The Montessori House we already practice what Dr. Pope preached in many cases.  It’s inherent in the Montessori Method to give children the opportunity to learn (to try repeatedly until competence is achieved), also to give children control of their time (choosing works, or choosing when they need downtime or a snack), and we build in some solid play time each morning and afternoon.

We generally recommend against tutoring or math/literacy enrichment programs outside of school, and encourage parents to limit the number of structured programs children attend.  Instead we always recommend parents read to their children, play with their children, and arrange unstructured play with friends outside of school (or in our After Care program).  And we couldn’t agree more with Dr. Pope on the importance of sleep — we see the difference it makes in our students’ behavior and ability to learn.

We often think of children at school only in the happiest sense, playing and exploring together, finding joy in their discoveries, and enjoying time with their friends. But a classroom, like the world outside it, is a mix of personalities, with varying maturity levels, backgrounds, expectations, and abilities. Sometimes those personalities clash, that happy setting is disrupted by conflict, and the children involved in the conflicts need to navigate their way back to a peaceful setting. Fortunately, teachers of young children are in a special position to teach children the peacemaking skills they need to resolve their conflicts and manage their anger, both now and in the future.

Action Research conducted by our Director,  Maria Morningstar, explored the various types and sources of classroom and playground conflicts, and the effects of a peace curriculum in reducing and resolving those conflicts.  The purpose of  her study was to determine whether teaching children about peace would help them to reduce or resolve conflicts in the classroom.

The study took place in a suburban Montessori classroom of 26 children, ages three to six years.  The data collected included observations of children’s conflicts and resolutions, conferences with the children and teachers, and children’s journal writings.

The results:  as the peace curriculum was implemented, there was a clear reduction in the number of daily conflicts among the children, and children involved in conflicts shifted from requiring a lot of teacher involvement to resolve their conflicts to needing little or no teacher involvement in the resolution.

You may access the research abstract, presentation slides, or the entire study here: SOPHIA: The Effects of a Peace Curriculum on Reducing and Resolving Conflicts among Children Ages 3-6 Years

Since the end of December we’ve been placing children into all our programs for September 2016.   We’ve completed placements to children returning to The Montessori House and their siblings, and we’re now placing new applicants.   While most families we speak are interested in placement for September 2016, we already have a growing list of applicants for September 2017.

Openings for September 2016.  Of 100+ students currently enrolled at The Montessori House, we now count about 60 who will return to the school next September (most of the other 40+ students have “aged-out” of our programs and will attend their local elementary school).  That means we’re placing about 40+ new students — 16 new students in our Montessori Stepping Stones program (age 2-1/2 to 3), about 25 new students in our Pre-Primary Montessori programs (age 3 to 4), and a handful of new Kindergarten students (age 5+).

As occurs every year, we have the greatest interest in our full-day programs (Pre-Primary Montessori/Enrichment and Montessori Kindergarten) and our morning, half-day programs (Montessori Stepping Stones and Pre-Primary Montessori) — these sessions fill the fastest and have the longest waiting lists.  In fact, the Stepping Stones morning session is filled already, largely with the younger siblings from Montessori House families.  The last sessions to fill are our afternoon, half-day programs (Montessori Stepping Stones and Pre-Primary Montessori).

To be considered for placement, families submit a paid application (download here).  While we only offer families placement after a school visit and tour, families are welcome to apply either before they visit, at the visit, or after visiting.

We offer tours most school days.  Tours are most informative  when the classroom is filled with students and teachers.  Consequently we only 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 in September 2016, but also show you the programs available in future years.   (Note, we can only spend time in the classroom on an “adults only” tour — a quiet infant carried by the parent is permitted, but no toddlers in the classroom please.)    Note, you may submit an application before you tour.

We generally schedule tours at 9:15 or 10:15 in the morning, or at 1:15 in the afternoon.  Please call to schedule a personal tour by calling us at 201-816-8343.  Or, we’ll contact you: e-mail us your contact information and we’ll reach out to schedule a visit.  Alternatively, on our Admissions Page , you can request our free Schools Checklist (at the right under “How Does Our School Compare?”enter your name, zipcode and e-mail in the boxes) , and we’ll e-mail you  information about booking a tour

Timing for Your 2016-17 Application: For families who are confident they want a placement offer for September 2016 from The Montessori House, we recommend submitting an application immediately.  Some families delay: to finalize plans to move to the area, to look at other schools, or they mistakenly assume they have plenty of time.  The cost of an application is small, and delay in submitting an application will reduce a family’s options now that we’ve begun placements  for next September.

Summary of our enrollment process:  At the end of the calendar year, we offer all our current students an opportunity to re-enroll for the following September.  Once we’ve completed re-enrollment, during the 2nd week of January, we  make enrollment offers to new families, more or less in the order we received a paid application.  After the end of January, we have rolling admissions and continue to offer placement in a session until that session is filled, at which point we start a session wait list.  A family may choose to enroll in an alternate session (e.g. afternoon rather than morning, or half-day rather than full-day), but still join the waiting list for their preferred session.

We urge families interested in entering September 2016 to act now: schedule a school visit and submit an application .

For more information please contact us through our website or call 201-816-8343.

Ms. Phyllis baked a special Easter bread for her students: a Slovak Paska.
A few families asked for the recipe, which may be found here.

The Montessori House will be closed today, Thursday March 5, due to weather.

We will schedule a make-up class for after school Chess Club.

Mar 12: 2015-16 Enrollment Agreements and Tuition Deposits Due

Apr 2: School Closed — Spring Break

Apr 13: School Reopens

We celebrate Valentines Day at The Montessori House this week.  Why?  Because the school and office will close from Friday February 13th through Sunday February 22nd.  We re-open on our usual schedule on Monday February 23rd.