New Horizons Montessori School - Education for children ages 18 months to 12 years in Dresher, PA

Bake Sale for a Good Cause

Tony Entwisle — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:12:08 +0000

The Lower Elementary students have a monthly bake sale. This gives them the opportunity to handle money and maintain a feeling of school wide community by selling to the classes they used to be in, have friends and siblings in, or will be part of in the future.

The children use the money raised to host celebrations like the Halloween party for the elementary class and their Children’s House guests and to buy ingredients for the allergy-proof granola they make so that everyone can be part of bake sale days.

At their weekly class meeting, each of the elementary classes proposed and unanimously voted in favor of donating their bake sale profits to the relief effort in Haiti in cooperation with a Montessori school in Miami:

www.aidhaitianquakekids.com

With this in mind the parents, teachers and students all made our most recent bake sale an amazing success. The parents were gracious enough to send the children with many great things to sell…and the money to buy some of it back!! Many children brought their own money. The teachers were very generous—muffins were going for $5 in some cases, and the kids were throwing in extra money too.

Finally, many of the parents who were at school for the Reading Buddies pizza dinner contributed generously to buy what was left. We are grateful for all of the support we received from the NHMS community. The spirit of generosity the children feel as we make this contribution is valuable. They earned the money ($257.00 from Ms. Fastiggi’s class alone!) and voted on its use and distribution—they are making a difference! Thanks to all.

No School

Tony Entwisle — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:11:46 +0000

School is closed Friday, February 12, 1010, Staff in-Service day. There is no child care.

Open House

Tony Entwisle — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 15:45:42 +0000

New Horizons opens her doors, inviting all to come and see. February 11, 2010, 9:00-10:30 AM.

Parent Teacher Education

Tony Entwisle — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:08:15 +0000

Parent Teacher Education Series

Winter

On October 7, New Horizons inaugurated their Parent Teacher Education Series with Dr. Tamar Chansky, who spoke about Anxiety in Childhood, identified the symptoms of the anxious child and proposed methods to deal with them at home and in school.

On Wednesday evening (7-9pm) January 13, 2010, NHMS will host the second Parent Teacher Education Night. Donald McCown, MAMS, MSS will discuss Mindfulness for Children - Coping with Anxiety and Stress.

Mindfulness is a form of meditation that improves a person’s ability to pay attention to what’s happening in the present moment.

Mindfulness is a skill that can be learned and, when practiced in a disciplined manner, research has shown it can help children reduce anxiety and improve their ability to pay attention and stay focused. It may lessen aggression in children as well. Parents can take advantage of the skills too, and not just for stress reduction. Mindfulness can help parents take a step back, and understand their child’s behavior.

Don McCown teaches Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, “MBSR” in the patient program at Jefferson and directs the Mindfulness at Work initiative, bringing MBSR to corporations, nonprofit organizations, and professionals — from judges and attorneys to nurses and therapists. He is a social worker with a Master of Social Services degree from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Applied Meditation Studies degree from the Won Institute of Graduate Studies. He has completed the most advanced training available from the Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Don is a Lecturer in the University’s College of Health Professions, and has been a member of the full time faculty of the Won Institute of Graduate Studies.

He also has a mindfulness-based psychotherapy practice at the Jefferson-Myrna Brind Center of Integrative Medicine, where his particular interests include the use of mindfulness in working with families with children with developmental disabilities. He is the author of Teaching Mindfulness: A practical guide for clinicians and educators and the forthcoming Walking into Now: Mindfulness practice for your busy life, and presents on mindfulness and its applications in health care and the workplace to international audiences.

Mindfulness for Children is an opportunity to learn simple and effective ways for children (and adults) to deal with stress and anxiety - an excellent adjunct to Dr. Chansky’s talk.

Please plan to join us on January 13!

New Horizons Community Service

Tony Entwisle — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 19:11:13 +0000

New Horizons Community Service: Lansdale Boys and Girls Club

By Julianne and Franziska, 6^th year students

This year each class at New Horizons Montessori School will donate healthy snacks to The Boys and Girls Club in Lansdale as community service. The Upper Elementary class was the first to participate in this project. They collected food during October and then delivered it in early November.

The students were asked to bring in extra large bags and containers of healthy snacks such as: pretzels, raisins, graham crackers, goldfish, whole wheat crackers, and granola bars for the after school program at The Boys and Girls Club. After collecting these items, the students bagged the bulk items. Mrs. Beck then drove the snacks to The Boys and Girls Club.

Thanks to your support, the Lansdale Boys and Girls Club will have tasty snacks to munch on at the afterschool program. We appreciate all your support for this NHMS community service project!

Will Wright

Tony Entwisle — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:59:02 +0000

Will Wright invented a genre of computer game that involves neither winning nor shooting, yet has generated colossal hits. Among them: SimCity (which earned its publisher $230 million), and received a Montessori Education through sixth grade.

A technical virtuoso with boundless imagination, Will Wright has created a style of computer gaming unlike any that came before, emphasizing learning more than losing, invention more than sport. With his hit game SimCity, he spurred players to make predictions, take risks, and sometimes fail miserably, as they built their own virtual urban worlds. With his follow-up hit, The Sims, he encouraged the same creativity toward building a household, all the while preserving the addictive fun of ordinary video games. His next game, Spore, which he previewed at TED2007, evolves an entire universe from a single-celled creature.

Wright’s genius is for presenting vital abstract principles — like evolution, differences of scale, and environmental dynamics — through a highly personalized, humorous kind of play. Users invest themselves passionately in characters they create (with Wright’s mind-boggling CG tools), and then watch them encounter fundamentals of life and nature. If it all sounds suspiciously educational, well, it just might be. Wright has created not just an irresistible form of entertainment, but an ingenious, original pedagogy.

Watch his presentation,Will Wright, as he describes the profound impact his Montessori Education has had on his career and life.

NHMS Communication

Tony Entwisle — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:02:18 +0000

NHMS Communication

In order to know what’s going on when parents:

Can and should check the website homepage regularly for news updates
“Subscribe” on the home page of the website to receive via email, the news updates that are posted on the website throughout the week
Read the electronic Friday Flyer for notification and information of upcoming events, download sign-up forms, read school news and link to the website
Check telephone and cell phone messages from the school phone number; they may have been generated by the AlertNow system and contain time sensitive information

Above all, In order to continually improve our communication, please communicate your information needs and suggestions to Laurie Stulb.

Light a Candle for Peace

Tony Entwisle — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 19:32:20 +0000

For those who were not able to be with us,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCCOXBS1a2w

Singing Peace Around the World

Tony Entwisle — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 19:42:36 +0000

At 10:33 am, NHMS’ students gathered around our peace pole to join over 70,000 children in singing Light a Candle for Peace.

Light a Candle for Peace (written by Shelley Murley), started in New Zealand at precisely at 11 am and was sung continuously for 24 hours by children in countries around the world until it finally reached the Hawaiian Islands.

For more information about this event, visit: http://singpeacearoundtheworld.blogspot.com/

Parent Education

Tony Entwisle — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 16:42:06 +0000

New Horizons Montessori School 2009-2010
Parent Education Calendar

OCTOBER

October 7, 2009 - Parent/Teacher Education, 7pm:

Tamar Chansky, Ph.D - Anxiety in Childhood

October 14, 2009 - Transition Night for 6th grade parents, 7pm
October 19, 2009 - Observations for Fall Conferences begin
October 24, 2009 - Journey and Discovery, 8:30 -12:45 pm required for all new parents, encouraged for current parents

JANUARY

January 13, 2010 - Parent Teacher Education, 7pm:

Donald McCown, MAMS. MSS - Coping with Anxiety and Stress; Mindfulness for Children

FEBRUARY

February 16, 2010 - Observations for Spring Conferences begin

APRIL

April 14, 2010 - Parent Teacher Education, 7pm:

Marc Berman, Ph.D - Coping with Anxiety and Stress.

Children and Nature