A Monthly E-newsletter Providing Useful Information to Caring Parents of Enrolled Students
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Where's My Newsletter? The Importance of Being Montessori Dr. Montessori opened her first "Casa de Bambini" in Rome in 1907. The celebration of the centennial of Montessori education has brought much attention to an educational method that is still ahead of its time. With "Google guys" Sergey Brin and Larry Page crediting their success to a Montessori education (ABC interview with Barbara Walters, 2004), the list of leaders (including Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Bill Clinton and Barrack Obama), who have chosen Montessori for their children, continues to grow. Our own graduates consistently amaze us with their leadership skills. After a century of quietly educating children, using the same proven method while other methods come and go, it seems as if the humble world of Montessori is coming into the spotlight. The satisfaction of that commitment comes as you see your child becoming more independent, responsible, confident and genuinely happy with her accomplishments. You'll realize that with your child's academic achievements come new levels of growth and awareness that contribute to an increasingly well rounded individual. It has been shown that children who have attended Montessori schools maintain an academic advantage and are more inventive and curious long after they leave the program and move into traditional schools as compared to children from other types of private schools (Miller and Dyer, 1975). We notice our graduates' names showing up on every honor roll and awards list. They make the news as leaders in civic and academic projects and the arts. We think this is largely because their parents are people who care about a good education and go out of their way to provide them with one. But we also think our students pick up a passion for learning in a Montessori classroom that sticks with them for life. Getting Back in the Groove Transition You may want to discuss and/or role-play saying good-bye with younger children. Be sure to convey your confidence that school is a good place for them to be. Some families establish a ritual such as hug-kiss-snuggle that reassures them both at parting. Saying good-bye quickly, warmly, lovingly and matter-of-factly just as you rehearsed (no matter how anxious you are feeling!) will ease them through this transition. Please be on time. We cannot accept children on campus before class begins. We hold staff meetings each morning before class. This time is very important and allows us to maintain a peaceful, harmonious and happy environment for your child. And if you are late picking up, teachers have a hard time fitting in cleaning, prepping, phone calls, lunch and meetings. Punctuality is as important to your child as it is to the staff. Children are often worried and distressed when they arrive too early, too late or when parents are late for pickup. Safety All students should be reminded to say good-bye to their teachers when leaving, not only as a matter of etiquette but also to ensure your child's safety. Dropoff/Pickup Routine Jeremy Ranch Campus - 2740 Rasmussen Road Traffic Flow/Parking Toddler Class (1 1/2 to 3 years old) All toddler students will need a backpack with a change of clothes, diapers, a 4" x 6" snapshot of the family (for the class album) and two 2" x 2" photos of the child (for the cubby and coathook/locker). Please select clothing and shoes that the toddler can learn to put on and take off by himself. Dressing skills are important in establishing confidence and independence, but most children under the age of 5 cannot tie their own laces. Velcro or slip-on style shoes are a must for toddlers. Early Childhood (3 to 6 years old) including EC Plus Enrichment & Elementary Prep EC morning students will be picked up on the playground between 11:45 and noon. Pick up for Enrichment and Prep students is at the front door between 2:45 and 3:00 pm. A teacher will be on the sidewalk to help your child into the car. If you want to get out of the car, please park in the parking lot and walk to the playground to pick up your child. EC students should bring a backpack with a water bottle, change of clothes, slippers and plenty of room to bring work home. They should be quite independent in dressing for the out-of-doors so please make sure your child can easily put on and take off her own shoes. Velcro, slip-ons or shoes with large buckles are a must until the child learns to tie laces at around 5 years of age. Enrichment and Prep students will need a lunch as well (see lunch guidelines below) Continuing students need to bring back their workbooks which will be kept in cubbies except during vacations. Park Avenue Campus - 1255 Park Avenue Traffic Flow/Parking Toddler Class (1 1/2 to 3 years old) All Tadpole toddler students will need a backpack with a change of clothes, diapers, a 4" x 6" snapshot of the family (for the class album) and two 2" x 2" photos of the child (for the cubby and coathook). Please select clothing and shoes that the toddler can learn to put on and take off by himself. Dressing skills are important in establishing confidence and independence, but most children under the age of 5 cannot tie their own laces. Velcro or slip-on style shoes are a must for toddlers. Early Childhood (3 - 6 years) including EC Plus Enrichment & Elementary Prep EC morning students will be picked up on the playground on 12th Street between 11:45 and noon. Pick up for Enrichment and Prep students is on the playground on 12th Street between 2:45 and 3:00 pm. A teacher will be on the sidewalk to help your child into the car. There is no parking on 12th Street. If you need to get out of the car, please park in the parking lot and walk to the playground to pick up your child. EC students should bring a backpack with a water bottle, change of clothes, slippers and plenty of room to bring home work. They should be quite independent in dressing for the out-of-doors so please make sure your child can easily put on and take off her own shoes. Velcro, slip-ons or shoes with large buckles are a must until the child learns to tie laces at around 5 years of age. Enrichment and Prep students will need a lunch as well (see lunch guidelines at right). Continuing students need to bring back their workbooks which will be kept in cubbies except during vacations. Elementary Classes (6 to 11 years) At pickup time you can park in the parking lot and meet your child in the Reading Garden in front of the building between 3:15 and 3:30 pm. Elementary students will need a lunch (see "Lunch Guidelines"), and the items listed below, most of which can be purchased at WalMart for around $60. (Please do not buy paper, pens or mechanical pencils.) The school supplies paper, erasers, planners, journals and art materials. The Elementary student will need:
Fall is a good time to shop for deals on camping equipment for this year's family camp-outs in September and May. You and your child should have a tent, sleeping bag, a flashlight, an emergency whistle, good hiking shoes and rain gear. The Elementary Outdoor Curriculum The outdoor curriculum is an important part of the Elementary student's education. The first weeks of school the children will be working on team-building activities to get to know themselves and each other. This culminates in the Fall Family Campout Thursday and Friday, September 8th & 9th, in the beautiful Uinta mountains. There will be field trips every Friday throughout the year including many hiking trips into the surrounding hills. The annual Spring Family River Trip (a three-day camping trip to Moab) is planned for May 9th -11th. These trips will require parental assistance with driving and preparing meals. Although they will take advance planning on everyone's part, these outdoor expeditionary learning experiences give the student a valuable opportunity to integrate classroom knowledge in a real world experience such as planning and preparing a meal for all the parents or studying the local flora. The outdoor classroom is every bit as important as the indoor counterpart. If your child must miss an outdoor experience for any reason please ask Michelle or Erin for a homework packet to supply similar experiences. On top of the educational importance, our family camping trips are always lots of fun and are guaranteed to create long lasting memories and friendships. Please plan to join us for this year's Family Campout and bring your best campfire stories! Details will follow...
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Mark Your Calendar Sunday, August 28th Monday, August 29th Friday, September 2nd Monday, September 5th Thursday - Friday, September 8th - 9th Thursday, September 8th, Saturday, September 10th, Sunday, September 11th, Wednesday, September 14th Tuesday, October 11th School Bulletin Board New 8:45-9:00 a.m. drop-off time for Toddlers and EC!...The portion of the school day when your child is absorbed in learning new skills is called the "work period". The ideal work period is 3 hours long so that each student has the opportunity to cycle through a variety of activities and plenty of time to complete each one. We do our best not to interrupt once a child is concentrating. For this reason we've decided to move our start time for all students to 8:45 am. With the transition into class complete by 9:00 am classes will be able to achieve close to an optimal 3-hour work period. Pick up times are still the same. Security doors will lock at 9:00 instead of 9:15 am. Breakfast Club will begin at 7:45 am. The Parent/Infant Class will begin at 9:00 am. Welcome Infants!...After many years of discussion and anticipation we are delighted to announce the launch of our new Parent/Infant Class at the Jeremy Ranch Campus. Montessori infant classes take the same appoach as classes for older children - an environment set up expressly to meet the needs of the children, from birth to 18 months old, with teachers who are trained to facilitate their development. The philosophy is to provide a sublime atmosphere including art, music, and didactic materials while providing interactive lessons with parents and babies on child development and educational philosophy. This class will be taught by Lynn Chadderdon, who holds a degree in English from UCBerkley, an AMS Infant and Toddler credential, has several years experience in the toddler class and is mom to an 11-year-old Montessori boy. Over the summer she made a trip to Seton Montessori in Chicago to observe a well-established parent/infant class in a school that is nationally recognized as a model school and teacher training facility. She has returned full of ideas and is excited to begin this new class. The class meets on Fridays from 9:00 until noon. Parents and infants are welcome to drop in and out as is convenient for them and the baby's nap schedule. There will be a group lesson each day at 9:30 and plenty of time for discussion as the children explore the classroom. The new class is called "El Nido" Italian (and Spanish) for "The Nest". We are offering a month's tuition free if you enroll now or with the enrollment of another student. This is a limited time offer based on availability. If you have a child under the age of 18 months, do call for a tour right away! Toddler toilet learning...Also new this fall Leah Linebarger's Sunflowers Toddler Class at Jeremy Ranch Campus will be implementing a new policy to facilitate toileting. Each day all Sunflower students will change into cotton training pants with plastic covers during class time.This will help them to become more aware of their own bodily processes and to become more independent in undressing and dressing themselves. Every toddler student will receive a bag in which to transport wet clothes home at the end of class and in which to bring clean clothes back in the morning. While it may be more practical to change into diapers for car rides and outings,we encourage parents to adopt the same policy at home. It will mean more laundry for all of us but just as we give older children every opportunity to learn to read and write when they are ready, we want to offer the same opportunity to toddlers learning to use the toilet. They just need lots of practice. The system has worked well in other schools around the world for decades and we feel it's time we gave it "the old Montessori school try"! We ask Sunflower parents to purchase a dozen or more pair of cotton training pants and plastic covers available at WalMart online ( $7.99/ 3 pants, $10.94/8 covers). We have back-ups at school. The success of this program depends upon always having clean pants ready to go. We recommend you keep a basket of clean pants in the bathroom at home and a pail in which your child can drop dirty ones. Please send in several pairs of clean pants each school day plus extra clothes. Since every child has a unique learning style prepare yourself for a long learning curve and if it happens sooner we'll be happily surprised. Thank you in advance for your support with this project. Since the Park Avenue Campus is not participating in this project (because they do not have a washer/dryer onsite) we are excited to see the comparison in toileting progress. Stay tuned for details! Welcome, Flynn!...We are happy to welcome our newest Montessori baby, teacher Kim Norman's new son Flynn, born on the 14th - brother August's birthday!! The family is resting happily at home. Kim will serve as our JR Campus Adminsitrative Assistant, while keeping her hand in the classroom when she returns to school so look for Kim and Flynn in the office and halls. In the meantime...Early Childhood students at the JR Campus will be combined in the Cottonwoods Class co-taught by Stevie Harrison and Anne Weinrauch until we are ready to reopen Kim's Kestrels Class.Stevie interned with JR Campus Director Lina Singleton last year and Anne interned with PA Campus Director Alyssa Fought so they've learned from the best and are full of great ideas for the new school year. That which we call a rose...We teachers like to be addressed by our first names. Here in the west we don't feel the need for titles such as "Miss", "Mrs." or "Mr.". We feel that true respect is shown by actions and attitude. We therefore avoid these titles and treat each other as friends. At Soaring Wings "Grace and Courtesy" is an every day reminder of manners practiced in all classes. Modern etiquette requires that we address others in a manner respectful of local culture and individual wishes. In Park City, even our Mayor is "Dana"! Welcome to the West, partners. Make yourselves right at home! If the shoe fits...All students will need clothing and shoes that they can easily manage themselves. If your child cannot yet tie laces, please provide school shoes with buckles, Velcro or slip-on styling. When shopping for school clothes keep in mind that there are plenty of opportunities to get wet and/or dirty at school. It's a good idea to keep a fresh change of clothes in the car in case your child has a run-in with paint or wet sand on the day of his dentist appointment. Security...Our security doors are closed and locked each day from 9:00 am until 3:45 pm. If you need to pick up a child or drop off a lunch during those times call the Parent/Teacher Hotline below. Class in session...If your child is late or must leave class early please make this transition as unobtrusive as possible to avoid disturbing class. Inside voices...Remember to lower your voice when in the classroom. Teachers and students use "inside voices" which are a step below normal conversation level to avoid disrupting nearby students. Even in the halls we use "inside voices" and "walking feet" out of respect for our neighbors. Anywhere on school grounds we practice good manners by returning equipment to proper places when leaving, picking up trash, leaving rocks and sticks on the ground and keeping feet out of garden areas. Events and Holidays...Remember to look over the Events and Holidays calendar posted on the website - www.soaringwings.org - and note the noon dismissal days, EC Party Days, Friday Parent/Teacher Conference days and school plays. Since more than half of our students are attending Mondays through Thursdays we try to schedule unusual events for Fridays so as to disrupt as few routines as possible. Parents welcome...Please feel free to come in after class and ask your child to show you what she has been working on. Your child's teacher will be happy to explain lessons and answer questions any time after class. We would also be delighted to have you observe class any time after our first six weeks of normalization. The following are phone numbers to keep handy. Teachers return calls after class. Please call the Parent/Teacher Hotline when your child will not be in class or will be picked up by someone new. We will not release a child to anyone without your authorization. Keep in touch! Parent/Teacher Hotline; Park Avenue Campus 640-4858 Lina Singleton, Director, can be reached at either number above or lina@soaringwings.org Duna Strachan, Executive Director can be reached at either number above or duna@soaringwings.org Bruce King, Administrator 649-3626 or bruce@soaringwings.org We recommend that you program these numbers into your cell phone so you can give us a call when your child is sick or if you're running late. Lunch Guidelines We recommend stocking a low shelf in the pantry and one in the refrigerator with appropriate lunch items such as cheese, yogurt, hard-boiled eggs, fruit, juice, cold cuts, sandwich makings and individually packaged leftovers such as pasta and pizza so that your child can pack her own lunch each day. Usually a half sandwich, fruit and a drink is enough lunch for a young child. "Lunchables", "Go-gurts" and other processed foods are easy to pack, but the packaging is not child- or Earth-friendly, the nutirition is negligible and they often go uneaten. Try providing the fixings so your child can make her own "munchable", an American version of the Japanese bento box approach to healthy portable meals: a small "Gladware"-type container and an assortment of sliced cheeses, fruits, crackers, vegetables and dips. She can arrange the foods into faces or designs - simple, beautiful and nutritious! If your child would like to share something, make sure there is enough for everyone (approximately 20). We have microwaves for student use in winter months and we recycle aluminum, glass, paper, cardboard and plastic. Students will take turns laundering tablecloths and picnic cloths each week. This not only lightens the teacher's load, but gives the child a Practical Life lesson that will hopefully carry over into the home. Until the weather turns cold children will be picnicking outside. During warm weather please make sure your child packs a lunch that does not require warming and contains all necessary utensils. It is so frustrating to sit down on a picnic cloth on a sunny day only to find you have a lunch of cold soup and no spoon! SWPTSO News Soaring Wings Parent Teacher Student Organization is a non-profit volunteer organization responsible for the social, civic and fund-raising events that enhance our school community. These include the Fall Fiesta, Fall Food Drive, Angel Trees, Conference Refreshments, Yearbook and Park City Children's Fair and Auction. Participation is voluntary. If you have not yet filled out a volunteer form for the new school year, please let any of us know how you would like to help. Thanks in advance for helping to make our school a special place. Dog Days The new school year starts Monday, August 29th. Sunday August 28th we'll be hosting our Open House at both campuses from 4:00 - 6:00 pm to give the children the opportunity to see their classrooms and visit with their teachers and classmates. We'll look forward to seeing all of you then! Take some time to roll down a grassy hill or watch the clouds go by with your child. Enjoy the rest of the summer! "Let us give the child a vision of the whole universe...for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity." Dr. Maria Montessori |
The beginning of a new school year is rapidly approaching and we are excited to see old and new friends. As we trickle back into town and dust the sand off our feet we all look forward to getting back into the school routine and catching up with each of you!
No, Montessori isn't for all parents but it is for virtually all children. And if you are willing to make the commitment to pay tuition, transport your child to and from school each day, keep up with school events, follow school policies, stay aware of your child's progress and areas of interest in the classroom and follow through with Montessori philosophy at home, then you've already made the big commitment it takes to be a Montessori parent.
students will need to bring a lunch each day. We will study nutrition in class and your child will bring home a copy of our food rainbow to post in the kitchen so that she may take responsibility for packing a healthy lunch. Unprocessed whole foods are the best choices. We are a "No Sugar, No Nuts" school. No candy (including chocolate-covered granola bars), soda pop or gum are allowed in school.Ask your child's teacher for a copy of our lunch guidelines pamphlet including peanut butter substitutes.