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DVMS Parent Newsletter
April 2013 - Vol. 5, Iss. 8
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Intro April2013PNRussell

DVMS and MASH are extremely excited to have Dr. Alex Russell offer his parenting expertise and insights to our communities on Wednesday, April 17th. Dr. Russell has just written a book, Drop the Worry Ball: How to Parent in the Age of Entitlement, which is a wonderful guide for raising resilient, independent children by worrying less and enjoying your children more.

From Dr. Russell's site:

"Children once 'grew up,' now we 'raise' them.
Today's parents do their best to meet all of the emotional, educational, nutritional and recreational needs of their kids throughout the entire day, every day. All this attention on children represents a huge advance: we know so much more about children's development and needs, and as a result, are much better able to support their growth.
However, there can certainly be too much of a good thing. With all this provisioning, protecting and programming we sometimes forget to ask:

Is it really a good thing to give children everything they need, all the time?

As soon as we ask the question the answer seems obvious: No. Children need to experience adversity at least some of the time, and they need to fend for themselves, increasingly so as they get older.
The irony is that modern, obligated parents, working so hard to nurture emotionally healthy children, are increasingly raising children who are delayed in their emotional development because they have been given too much and protected too often."


I saw Dr. Russell speak at a Montessori conference earlier in the year. He was both deeply engaging and amusing, and left me so impressed that I contacted him the next day to speak to the parents of the DVMS community.

This evening will be open to the public, so please be sure to invite any friends or family who you feel would be interested.

Join us at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, April 17th. We would never make these kind of events mandatory, but all of us here at DVMS strongly encourage your attendance. Remember, it's for the children.

Tony Evans
Director
Dundas Valley Montessori School
Montessori Adolescent School of Hamilton
[email protected]

Important Dates for Your Calendars

Friday, April 12
FundScrip order forms due

Monday, April 15
Upper Elementary Field Trip

Wednesday, April 17
Parent Education Evening

Thursday, April 18
MASH Baja Parent/Student Information Session

Monday, April 22
Earth Day Book Swap

Event and Information Details

Parent Education Evening
On Wednesday, April 17, DVMS will be hosting a unique parent education event with speaker Alex Russell, a clinical psychologist (see Tony's introduction above).
This event will take place in the DVMS gymnasium, with a social starting at 6:30 and the speaker beginning at 7:00. The event is open to the public, so please spread the word and/or share our Facebook event notice.
Due to the event taking place in the gym, child care is not possible for this event. However, we have six adolescent students ready and able to babysit that night and they have asked that families contact them directly. We have their contact info at the office. They have asked that babysitting recompense at a rate of $10/hour be directed as donations towards their upcoming eco-trip to Baja, Mexico. Remember, the adolescent program is a charity, so donations are eligible for tax receipts.

Upper Elementary Field Trip
On Monday, April 15, the Upper Elementary students will be traveling by bus to the Young People's theatre in Toronto to see the play Blue Planet. The play begins at 10:15, and the bus will leave DVMS at 8:45.

Parent Steering Committee
The Parent Steering Committee has been established through a collaboration between Tony and Lisa Petrisor. The Steering Committee is comprised of parents who have been actively involved in the school and exhibit a desire to continue to enhance and support our Guides and School Management. The parents on the Steering Committee have a total of 17 children in the Casa, Lower Elementary, and Upper Elementary classes. While the Steering Committee members were appointed, we welcome participation from all parents and caregivers in our projects and initiatives.
We will be having monthly article and book discussions that we would like to invite the whole community to attend. Our first discussion will be on April 19 at 8:45 am during the Adolescent Coffee House. We will be sending out an invitation and a copy of our first article, "Ten Montessori Ideas That Convert Parents to the Child's Point of View," in the next few days.
We are also compiling a Parent Resource Binder that the children can use to get in touch with parents willing to share their expertise. If you haven't already, and would like to be included, please fill out and submit the Parent Resource Form. Thank you.

Baja Student/Parent Information Session
The final information session for the adolescent student Ecology Project International trip to Baja, Mexico will take place on Thursday, April 18, from 7:00 - 8:00 pm.

FundScrip
Speaking of the Baja trip, FundScrip fundraising will continue in April and there will be one more campaign in May. Order forms will be handed out on Tuesday, April 2, so look out for the adolescents at the gate, or they can be found here. Order forms are due back on Friday, April 12.
To date, we have raised $1400 towards the Adolescent Baja trip, and we thank you all for your support. If you haven't yet given FundScrip a try, perhaps you might consider it this time around. The idea is simple. You choose from a wide range of gift cards for various stores, pay the face value of the gift card ($10, $25, $50, or $100), put the order form in the envelope in the school foyer, and the cards are hand delivered to you at DVMS a few days later. You can get cards for everyday things like groceries at Food Basics, Metro, Fortinos and other popular grocery stores, cards for gas, pizza, the movie theatre, or more luxurious items like a day at the spa; or stock up on cards for Rona for all of those Spring renovations you plan on doing. The beauty of this fundraiser is that you are not spending money that you otherwise wouldn't be spending. You simply choose the cards that you will use for things that you buy anyway.
Thank you again to all who have supported us so far. Enjoy your cards! If you have any questions please feel free to email me at [email protected].

Earth Day Book Swap
Our 3rd annual Earth Day Book Swap will take place on Monday, April 22, encouraging our Casa and Elementary students to reduce their consumption and reuse the resources already within their community. This is also a great opportunity for spring cleaning!
All Casa, Lower, and Upper Elementary students are welcome to select and donate up to 10 books for exchange. To ensure there are enough appropriate books for all, we ask that students donate fiction or non-fiction books appropriate to their own level, including storybooks, readers, and chapter books. Please refrain from donating baby board books or adult fiction.
Books will be received by your child's classroom teachers during the week preceding the swap, from Monday April 15 to Friday April 19. Please send donations in a reusable bag labeled with your child's name; this bag will be re-used by your child on the day of the swap to carry their new books home.

New Website
DVMS is launching a brand new website. It will still have a lot of the features you are used to, but will also allow us a greater degree of control and functionality. I won't go into details here, but when you visit our website, as you all do daily anyway, you will soon notice the new design.
DVMS also has other online portals:

Lower Elementary Gymnastics
The Lower Elementary kids will be starting gymnastics in April at Hamilton Gymnastics Academy.
  • Lower Elementary West (Noeleen) will attend gymnastics on Tuesdays (April 2, 9, and 16).
  • Lower Elementary East (Rob) will attend gymnastics on Thursdays (April 4, 11, and 18).
The children will be bused to and from gymnastics. Please remember to wear or bring loose, appropriate clothing on those days.

Upper Elementary Karate (+ track Apr. 26)
Upper Elementary will begin karate, at DVMS, Fridays in April. Once again, the kids will learn from Gord Waddell of United Family Martial Arts, who has been working with DVMS kids for a number of years now, and always receives rave reviews from the sweaty, red-faced kids. (Four weeks of track and field at McMaster will begin April 26).

Staff Observations Continuing
As we noted last month, over the course of the Winter and Spring terms, all of the staff members of DVMS and MASH will be observing in all of the other classrooms. Continuing this month, you will notice that some of the classroom articles are written by the teacher that observed in certain classrooms. We hope you find the fresh perspectives enjoyable and valuable.
CE April2013PN
It was obvious from the first day back after the March break that the third term had begun. We had discussed that we would just get the children back into a routine coming off the two week break and then Easter weekend would be upon us. Much to our surprise, this was not the case at all. The children came back refreshed, excited to see their peers, and BUSY in the classroom!! One afternoon this week, I looked up from my lesson and every single child was engaged in work.

The third-year children are visibly morphing into elementary children, the second-years are taking on more and more responsibility, and the first years are displaying their comfort level in their environment.

We are looking forward to the warmer weather ahead when we can work more in our outdoor environment. Our fall bulbs should be poking their heads out of the soil soon so the children will be able to enjoy the fruits for their labor. Before long we will be able to plant our vegetable gard

Holly and Catherine
[email protected]
CN April2013PN
I sat down in the Casa North classroom for my observation and tried to be inconspicuous. However, I clearly arrived while some children were between jobs and I was eagerly greeted by a number of them. This sense of belonging and community is one of the main reasons I love working at DVMS, and in Casa North the children are evidently part of a warm community. Back after two weeks of March Break, all of the children seemed as though they had never been away, and all were content to be back at work in this wonderful learning haven. Suddenly, I was approached and informed that one of the children was now writing on "Red Paper," which from the excitement of the informant was clearly a great advancement in the Montessori world of writing. I searched out the child with his "Red Paper," but did not locate him for some time, sitting quietly in a comfortable chair, writing away. I realised that the "Red Paper" is actually white paper with red lines, and it made me giggle to think that no matter what other people may call this paper, for these children it will always be "Red Paper." I observed another little boy reading, engrossed in his book for almost the whole half-an-hour I was there. When he got up to go get some paper, the book closed on the table, and I saw that it was the Children's Illustrated Dictionary. Ah, a child after my own heart. Dictionaries make for a fascinating read! He proceeded to make notes! Just then another child sat down on the rug opposite me and read Who Invented Basketball. In five minutes he had clearly obtained all the information he needed and was off to do something else. If only we could all use our time as efficiently. We could probably get through that pile of books beside the bed begging to be read. Think of the sense of accomplishment at the end of every day if we were able to satisfy our curiosity about things that genuinely interest us. The children in Casa North go to sleep each night with that sense of achievement, and they wake up every morning curious about so many other things. There was a hum in their classroom as they all stayed busy and engaged. We as grown ups often need our day planners to organise our time, and even then we count ourselves lucky if we get to do half of what we planned to get done. These children work efficiently using all of the Montessori materials available to them; they stop to read when the urge takes them, they go to the snack table to eat when they are hungry, they tidy and clean the classroom on the go. In short, they follow a rhythm of life and learning in a place where both flourish. Wonderful!

Dylan and Jodi Janice Egan, Upper and Adolescent French Specialist
[email protected]
CS April2013PN
Now that winter is officially over, we are all looking forward to the new life and warm weather that spring brings. During the long winter months, the earth has been preparing itself for all the new growth that happens every spring. As we begin the final term of the school year, we can see how all of the work that the children have been doing in the first two terms has prepared them for more advanced work, helping each child transition to his or her next phase of development. In the final term, the first-years will be getting ready to become second-years, the second-years are learning to transition to the important role of becoming the new leaders in the class, and the third-years are preparing themselves for the exciting change of becoming elementary students where the three-year cycle begins all over again.

Second and third-years are counting chains, and thus learning their multiplication tables (without even realizing it). There is advanced math going on everywhere with the third-years - finger charts that help them learn their math facts, which will serve them well once they get to elementary, all of the operations with the Stamp Game, helping them make the leap from concrete math work to being able to work abstractly.

The work that the children have done in the language area in the last two terms is also beginning to bear fruit. All the Sandpaper Letter practice that our first-years have been working on this year has brought them to the point where they will be ready to begin work on the Movable Alphabet, creating words with their own heads.

This is an exciting time when we, and the children, begin to really see the fruits of all their and (and our) labour. Like the mystery of winter, we cannot always see the work that is going on, and then suddenly, as if by magic, the seeds that we have sown begin to sprout and there seems to be new life everywhere.

Pat and Serena
[email protected]
LEE April2013PN
It was my pleasure to observe in Lower Elementary East this week. Rob was giving the year-one children a lesson on vertebrates and invertebrates. When I came in, the children were looking at the spine of another child. Rob then showed them a vertebra from a whale and explained the connection between the two. The children then played a game sorting animal cards into their proper categories. There were so many amazing things in this seemingly simple lesson. They began by examining the real thing, thus making the lesson both meaningful and relevant. They discussed the different systems in the body, placing the skeletal system in context. They learned the names of the five families of animals. They read the definitions of vertebrates and invertebrates, bringing reading into the lesson. They talked about what it would be like not to have a spine and how our bones help us move. And the vocabulary! Pices, reptilian, avis, nervous system, arthropoda, compound words! Even the way they were asked to explain their reasoning for their answers in the game they played was indicative of a higher learning process. It was clear from what I saw that the Elementary curriculum is incredibly interconnected. The children were all fully engaged in the lesson and it was fun to see some of my old students exposed to all this wonderful knowledge in such a supportive and non-judgemental environment.

Rob Pat, Casa South Guide
[email protected]
LEW April2013PN
I love Third Term. Walking through the class the past couple of days, it is has been amazing to watch the students work confidently with materials and digging deeper in areas that they only scratched the surface of just a few months ago. Montessori refers to this as a normalized classroom - a teacher's dream. This month, we have started to explore poetry with students, listening to and writing poems as well as preparing presentations to share with their peers. We will continue our study of measurement focusing on mass, volume, and temperature. Projects remain an important component of the class with animals, famous people, and dinosaurs being hot topics as of late. So much happening, and it's all humming along like a well-oiled third term machine.

UE April2013PN
Welcome Back! The students enjoyed their March Break and much needed vacation time. With the end of March Break comes the beginning of third term. It is hard to believe, really, that we are in April already. April promises to be a fantastic month. We have started our science unit and the students are already creating, hypothesizing, testing, and observing many different kinds of experiments. We are of course working towards our science fair that will take place in May.

The Upper Elementary students will be doing Karate on Fridays. Please ensure that your child is wearing comfortable clothing. The students will be traveling to Toronto on April 15th to see a play at the Lorraine Kingsma Young People's Theater. We will be leaving promptly at 8:45am and will return for 1:00.

Along with the warmer weather, comes mud. Please ensure that your child has a pair of indoor shoes here.

MASH April2013PN
The Students at MASH undertook their second Odyssey, to Quecbec City, this March. Putting their French to the test, they experienced what, for many, would be a trip to remember:

"I had a great time and will remember this trip for the rest of my life!" -- Misha

"What I particularly liked about the restaurant was that Misha (who can only eat lactose free food) found a cake that was not only lactose free, but tasted great as well." -- Giulian

"I really liked the trip to Quebec because it really brought us together." -- Phebe

"Overall I really loved Quebec and one day hope to come back." -- Leila

"We all enjoyed the museums and monuments we visited and had fun exploring the city." -- Beatrice

"Being in Quebec itself was a huge aid to the study process. Rather than learning the history of Canada on paper we got to go there and experience the history!" -- Venia

Chris and Emily