Hope Montessori Academy ~ Creve Coeur
October News
October Events
September 25 School Picture Proofs Available in the Office
October 3 Annual Parent Child Work Day
October 12 & 13 St. Louis County Health Department
“Healthy Habits” Demonstration
October 16 Diwali Celebration ~ During the Morning
October 19 Retake Day – For Children who were absent on
School Picture Day
October 30 Morning Halloween Celebration – NO Costumes
There are several ways families can stay informed about special events at Hope.
· Please check the calendar is posted on our website: www.hopeacademy.com
· Also, reminder notes are placed on the front door and/or the sign in desk, and the communication board outside your child’s classroom.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Annual Parent/Child Work Day, 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Bring the whole family and spend the morning planting flowers, hauling mulch, working on the playground, sewing and more. This event resembles an old fashioned barn raising. It is astonishing how many jobs are completed in a short time. Even if you can only attend for an hour, please try to come. This is one of the best events at Hope. Some of the projects for this year include: painting playground equipment, gardening, working on the nature trail, hauling mulch, turning the compost pile, planting bulbs, sewing, and pruning and trimming roses. Please take a moment to sign up for a job. They are posted in the entry. All families are invited to bring a dish to share. No nuts and/or pork dishes, please. Hope provides the entrée. Lunch will be served at 11:30 a.m.
Welcome to our Hope Families!
The summer has flown by and we return to Hope for another school year. I wish to extend a big warm welcome to all the families in our school community. It is always so exciting to greet familiar faces and meet new parents and children. In an effort to help you recognize all of our staff, we have posted photographs on the communication board outside each classroom.
Thoughts from our Artist in Residence:
Hilary Fischman
One of my professors recently asked me and my colleagues, “Do you know why you are engaging in every single activity you present to your students?” He followed this question with a firm statement: “If you cannot justify the activity, stop doing it.” My colleagues nodded their heads and I could tell that many of them were doing mental jumping jacks trying to assess the applicability of their particular activities and lessons. I immediately began to think about how to justify my lesson on shaving cream and powdered tempera paint. Is it okay to take up time mixing and squishing and giggling? I realized that while the immediate or most obvious justification for some activities is that they are fun, they always satisfy larger curricular and developmental aims.
Creating collages with construction paper or found objects gives the children the opportunity to create relationships between objects or construct visual representations of things they would like to describe. Drawing with oil pastels, chalk, colored pencils, and felt-tipped pens lets the children refine their fine motor skills and fine tune them for various other tasks. An activity that requires using glue is automatically a lesson in cause and effect. The young child may need to drop the glue, apply it to the wrong side, get their fingers stuck together, and ultimately work through this all on his own. Successful use of a glue stick is actually quite complicated! The child must properly unscrew the lid, raise the glue by turning the bottom counterclockwise, turn the glue upside down, apply the raised glue to the proper surface, place the item to be glued on top of the nearly invisible splotch of glue, and pull the finger away from the item without it sticking to the finger. This is A LOT for a young child to accomplish. It takes mental processing, perseverance, and fine motor skills. Not to mention, most children have a particular outcome in mind for each of their actions.
Thus far, the children have watched their etched blocks transfer mirror images onto paper. They have created texture with paint and combs. They have experienced the magic of “lifting” color from one piece of paper to the back of another simply by pressing firmly with a pen. All of these experiences help the children make sense of the world around them. In addition, they create some pretty spectacular art!
Timely Arrival
For those of you returning to Hope, you are aware of the importance of timely arrivals. For new families, the importance of timely arrivals cannot be overstated. School begins at 8:30 a.m. Arriving by 8:15 allows your child the opportunity to connect with his/her friends before the work day begins. Late arrivals set the stage for a day of difficult transitions as your child is then one step behind. For your child’s sake, please make every effort to arrive on time for circle. If on occasion you are late, please walk your child to the classroom. Please say goodbye to your child at the classroom door. Encourage her to walk in on her own, and one of the teachers will great her and help her start her day. Please minimize distractions once class is in session.
Meal and Snack Time
Many parents have questions about school snacks and meals. Our menu is reflective of our dedication to serving nutritious and culturally diverse foods. Your child will prepare his/her snack and choose foods daily. With more support for his/her growing independence, meals become social occasions. Here at Hope, the child is free to eat when hungry and eats what he/she likes. My experience has shown that when you relax, your child will too.
Breakfast is served from 7:00-8:00 each day. Children need an unhurried calm environment in which to serve, eat, and clean up. If you would like your child to eat breakfast at school, they need to be seated at the breakfast table by 7:45.
Morning Snack is available at 9:15. Every morning a healthy snack is provided for every Hope child. Each day the children eat snack when they are hungry.
Lunch and Nap Routine
Lunch is served at 11:30. Part of the child’s responsibility in the class is to set the tables with linens, napkin, plate, fork, cup, and pitchers. After hands are washed, the children sit in their places, serve family style, and wait with napkins on laps for their table to be ready to eat. A greeting is said and the meal begins. Grace and courtesy is modeled and supported during the mealtime conversation. Once the child has completed the meal, clean up begins. Both patience and proficiency are required to wait your turn. Children scrape their dishes and place their napkin in the laundry basket. At 12:30 p.m. our half day program ends, and parents arrive to take their child home.
Once clean up is completed, then preparation for nap begins. The children use the bathroom before getting on the cot to rest. Some children clean tables, chairs, and floors while others take the dirty linens to the laundry. After all that hard work, everyone is ready for some quiet time.
Afternoon snack is served right after nap at 3:00. Sometimes the whole class will share a snack together and at other times children will eat snack with a friend. If you know that your child will be hungry at pick up time, bring a light nutritional snack for the car ride home.
School Safety
Please be sure to sign your child in and out everyday at the sign in desk.
As part of our security system, the front door requires a code to enter the school. For safety reasons, we do not publish the code for the front door. If you do not know the code, ask a staff member.
Please remember to open the doors only for people you know. We are a caring community who practice grace and courtesy. However, make sure that you know the person before you give them access to our school building.
If a different person will pick up your child at the end of the day, please write the information on one of our yellow pick up forms. Also, please ask the people picking up your child to bring their driver’s license.
Cell phone use is prohibited on school premises. We have always discouraged cell phone use inside of our school building and on field trips. We also request that parents not use their cell phones in the parking lot. Last year we had an incident in the parking lot that nearly seriously hurt a child and her father. Please give your full attention to our Hope families as you arrive and leave each day. Of course, once you are in the building, your attention should focus on your child. So for the sake of our children, please turn off cell phones when in the parking lot and in the school.
Let’s Stay Healthy
The St. Louis Department of Health will come to Hope on October 12 & 13 to give the children and staff demonstrations in proper hand washing, nose blowing and how to cough into your sleeve.
Last spring and early summer, we heard news reports of the H1N1 virus in the St. Louis area. To date we have had one case of H1N1 at Hope. However, we are not sure what we can expect this fall and winter. I would like to share some things that we as parents and teachers can do together in preparation for the next round of flu.
· We can demonstrate and practice covering your mouth when you sneeze or cough.
· We can demonstrate and practice hand washing with your child.
· We can demonstrate and practice nose blowing with your child followed by hand washing.
· To stop the spread of contagious diseases, parents should not send children to school when they have a fever. It is also important to keep your child home for 24 hours after the child is fever free without medication.
· Begin thinking now about making the necessary preparations to keep your child home for an extended period if he/she comes down with the H1N1 virus or the regular flu.
· If your child is staying home due to illness, please be sure to call or email us, so we can inform your child’s teachers.
I hope our efforts will result in a safe and healthy school year for our children, parents, and staff.
Peanut Free Environment
Peanut allergies are a serious health concern for many of our children. Hope Montessori ~ Creve Coeur is a peanut free environment. Please do not bring any birthday treats and/or cultural snacks that contain peanuts to Hope.
Extracurricular Classes
At this time, Creative Movement, Spanish, Chinese, and Computer classes are full or very nearly full. Children may add a class at the beginning of the month if space is available. Otherwise, we will place them on a waiting list. If you plan to drop a class, that would also take effect at the beginning of the month after the office is notified. Please be sure to discuss this with your child. We have had several times when a child bursts into tears because they do not understand they are no longer attending one of the special classes.
Tuition Payments
Tuition is due by the fifth of each month. We send reminders after fifteen days.
Update Contact Information
We have frequently noticed that our records of cell phone numbers, email addresses, work numbers, etc., are not current. Please be sure to update all contact information as it changes.
School Policies
Please be familiar with all our school policies. Policies include hours of operation, safety procedures, health and illness regulations, items needed, celebrations, observations and conferences, inclement weather, and tuition. A copy is available in the office.
Wish List…..
Have you noticed the beautiful new art in the building? Hilary spent the summer matting and framing new art for the classrooms and the hallways. Many of the frames were given by Cecilia Norris and her parents, Kim & Brandon, and Katie Tull and her parents, Stacey & Frank. We could still use more frames. If you have any “old” frames, we would be happy to take them off your hands. We can use frames of any color or size.
We will be planting a perennial bed and a new tree on Work Day. If you would like to donate a plant, please stop by the office.
Thank you to…..
Stephen Rosenberg’s mother, Anat, for reading a story about Rosh Hashanah. The children also enjoyed tasting the apples and honey she brought to the children in Room 7.
Sophia Junaidi’s parents, Omer and Aayesha, for reading a Ramadan story and sharing delicious dates with the children in Room 2.
Mathew Bergman’s family for donating large paper to the art area.
Karis Haney’s mom, Kathleen, and Beckett Wilke’s mom, Paige, for helping on school picture day!
Ben Schuster and his parents, Kris and Troy, for their gift to Room 6. Many new science books and activities have been purchased from Barb’s wish list with their gift.
Jack Wilmoth and his parents, Donna & Preston, have also given a generous “thank you” donation to Room 7 and Kindergarten. We are purchasing specific materials from Misha and Mark’s wish lists for their classrooms
Zoeya Kahn and her family for donating a beautiful globe to Room 1. It arrived just in time for the first birthday celebration in Room 1.
Thank you,
Susie