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ALMOST ABLAZE – Teton Gravity Research

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

Awarded “Film Of The Year” at the 2014 International Freeski Film Festival, TGR’s Almost Ablaze is a global odyssey combining state-of-the-art cinematography and the most progressive riding on The Planet. Experience a new level of sensory overload as each athlete is wired for sound, immersing the audience completely in the moment. Watch as athletes push the edge to realize a heightened state. Special screening at the Tower Theatre at 7:00pm on Wednesday – December 3, 2014. [ read more… ]

Every ticket holder will receive a Powder Mountain 2-for-1 Day Pass at the event.

Movie trailer here: www.tetongravity.com/films/almost-ablaze

On October 10th, just before 9 PM, a 48″ water main pipe broke on Foothill Blvd sending over 2.5 million gallons of water down 1700 South. The Montessori Community School was one of the unfortunate victims of the flood. The lower level classrooms, and the maintenance room were flooded and nearly 100 students have been displaced. It will take 6 to 8 weeks for all repairs to be completed. Please join us for our fundraising event featuring the Teton Gravity Research Movie: Almost Ablaze. All ticket proceeds will go to the MCS Flood Relief Fund.

 

 

                                                                               This event has ended
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We recommend pre-purchasing your raffle tickets. 
See some of the raffle items available here

Almost Ablaze – December 3, 2014Doors Open at 6:45pm for Raffle

Tower Theatre
876 E 900 S
Salt Lake City, UT 84105

 

Middle School Career Investigations Immersion, November 10-14

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

The MCS Middle School’s second cycle (6-week period) of the year focused on “Changes,” in literature, in the natural and physical world around us (fungi, protists, and matter), and how we can be catalysts for positive change in society. The immersion week offers students an opportunity to apply and integrate what they have learned throughout the previous five weeks. For Cycle 2 the immersion was a Career Investigations week. Leading up to the immersion, students utilized expository writing methods to research possible careers. During the immersion week, they investigated different professions through interviews, field trips and job shadowing.

The first professional to visit was a local paramedic and firefighter. He brought his fire gear along, which weighed about 30 pounds, not including an oxygen tank. Nearly everyone in the class took the opportunity to try it on. He also brought his medical supplies and allowed the students to experience the powerful smell of ammonia tablets that paramedics use to rouse unconscious people. He told the class the process for becoming a firefighter, which involves a written test and then a physical one. The physical test includes being able to hold 100 pounds and run a large number of stairs. Firefighters typically work 48-hour shifts (they’re able to sleep if there isn’t an emergency) and then they have four days off. Robert explained that the pay for a firefighter is about $42,000, and a fire captain makes about $82,000. A paramedic can make about $60,000. The pay goes up for all of these jobs the more relevant degrees one has.

A local documentary filmmaker showed the students trailers for four of her films. She was a social worker for about twenty years and then went to film school at the University of Utah because she felt that filmmaking would allow her to have a greater impact on society. She finds documentaries to be fascinating and a good way to learn. She explained that being an independent filmmaker allowed her to have a flexible (though busy) schedule. She has to do fundraising for her films on her own, which is typically very time-consuming. She said that her salary varies over time since she has her own business.

The students also heard from a Basic Life Skills (BLS) instructor and midwife’s assistant (she’s training to become a midwife). She teaches birth classes, and she assists with births at The Birth Center in Salt Lake City. She explained that midwives are trained to be able to do numerous medical procedures as needed, including monitoring a mother’s and baby’s vital signs, giving Pitocin if a mother is losing too much blood after a delivery, and giving stitches as needed. She showed the class a movie about unmedicated births and explained the differences between a doula and a midwife (a doula provides emotional support during labor but does not do medical procedures). Adrianna has assisted with more than 200 births.

On Thursday, November 13th, the class visited the music studio of John Hancock, MCS parent and a local songwriter. He showed the students his equipment and explained that he is hired by companies to create songs for commercials as well as to remix existing music. Companies usually pay songwriters between $300 and $1,000 in advance to create a demo song and then between $3,000 and $5,000 if they use the song. John explained that songwriters also receive royalties on songs they write that are subsequently used.

The next day, Dr. Mary Dickerson, MCS parent and a veterinarian, visited the students along with two of her coworkers. She works in Laboratory Animal Science in the Office of Comparative Medicine at the University of Utah. She takes care of the animals in the lab where she works. She explained that a veterinarian can make between $50,000 and $175,000. She brought scrubs for the students to keep and had them do a relay race to see how quickly they could put the scrubs on.

An anesthesiologist visited the same day. He explained that his job is basically to keep people from dying and to keep them comfortable. He uses morphine, local anesthetic, and sometimes laughing gas in his work. He gives epidurals as needed to mothers in labor. He typically works 65 hours a week but sets his own schedule, and he said that anesthesiologists makes between $250,000 and $700,000 depending on the year. He explained that he went to school in the United Kingdom and that the structure there involves going straight to medical school immediately after completion of high school.

The final professional to visit was MCS parent Chris Fischer, who has been a helicopter pilot since 2008. He said that helicopter pilots make an average of $40,000 per year. His most common assignment is giving tours of the Grand Canyon, and he works either seven days on then seven days off, or else 14 days on and 14 days off.

The Middle School class was excited to learn about so many different professions and was grateful to all of the professionals who shared their time and knowledge with the class.

By Carla Moquin, Middle School and Lower Elementary parent

 

LiVe Well- 8 Healthy Habits for Kids, Teens, and Families

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

                                               Intermountain LiVe Well Assembly

                                                 The 8 Health Habits—The Musical!

MCS Kindergarteners, Elementary, and Middle School students attended Intermountain’s LiVe Well assembly.

The assembly was a fun-filled 45-minute health education show called LiVe—The 8 Healthy Habits Musical!

The Grand Theatre and Corporate Staging Resources brought the excitement of live theater to MCS in hopes

to encourage students to adopt healthy eating and exercise habits. In a mix of drama and humor, performers

spoke to our students hoping to empower them with the skills they need to critically evaluate media messages

and peer group pressures in order to make healthy choices from eating more vegetables and obtaining at least

10 hours of sleep at night.

The first 3 healthy habits revolve around the food and drinks that are put into our bodies:

     1.   Always east breakfast and make it a healthy one.

      2.   Eat more fruits and vegetables.

      3.   Limit –or eliminate sweetened beverages.

Followed by the next two healthy habits revolving around activity:

       4.   Sit less and limit screen time. 

       5.   Move more.

The final 3 involve sleep and support.

       6.   Get enough sleep.

       7.   Eat meals together as a family.

       8.   Be positive about food and body image.

Wholesome varieties of activity, food, sleep, and support are proven to be crucial to a balanced and healthy

lifestyle.  The LiVe Well program is geared toward educating and motivating the younger generations to practice

and incorporate the 8 health habits into their lives.

 

Our MCS students were, of course, the perfect audience. Our students demonstrated the utmost level of respect

with beautiful live interaction and well thought out responses.

 

MCS encourages our parents to review with their students the 8 healthy habits and find ways to better

incorporate these practices into their daily routine. Parents may have one of the most powerful roles in helping

to shape a child’s life. Support from parents and/ or guardians is essential to forming habits. Let us try to make

healthier choices for our future generations and ourselves.

 

 

An MCS Family shares their story

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

An MCS family recently shared their story about their new baby who was diagnosed with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency (SCID). Their story is unique as Calla is the first of the approximately 61,000 newborns screened for SCID so far in Utah to have a positive test result. Calla, sister to Tatum, has been in isolation at Primary Children’s Hospital since a few days after her birth and is awaiting a bone marrow transplant.
Logan and Jody, parents to Calla and Tatum, have been advocates and supporters of MCS even while their sweet new baby is staying the the hospital. They even recently spent the evening volunteering at the Halloween Carnival. We want to offer our love and support to Tatum, Logan, Jody and especially Calla. Their story is touching…Read more here, here  and here about SCID and about Calla’s upcoming transplant.
We hope that the surgery goes smoothly and that Calla is able to come home to her family soon.  The family feels blessed that Calla has remained healthy up to this point and we wish them all the best.  This is a great opportunity for us to teach our students the importance of good hygiene and care of self!
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A brief word to the MCS community from Logan and Jody:
We are very lucky that Calla’s illness was caught so early and we are holding our breath as we await her bone marrow transplant.  They found a 10/10 match for Calla through the National Bone Marrow Program, and we are incredibly thankful that somewhere out there an anonymous donor agreed to help save Calla’s life.  We’d like to encourage anyone who is willing to sign up for bone marrow registry at BeTheMatch.org.  We knew little about bone marrow donation before all of this started, and we were surprised to learn that the process is quite easy: initially you’ll just send a cheek swab, and after that there is a ~1/500 chance over your lifetime that you’ll be called up to donate and save someone’s life!
Register at BeTheMatch.org.
Once Calla has received her transplant and the family is settled they hope to organize a drive for potential volunteers and we will share further information about that as it becomes available.

Trying to keep more mess out of their classroom

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

Margaret and Laura trying to keep more mess out of their beloved Uinta classroom!
Ruby has been a most wonderful photographer and documenter!
Brandi feeling overjoyed about the set up of the temporary Lower El classroom at the church.
Laura in the new Uinta and Arches space.
Joshi displays some of the Arches work that survived the flood.
Look at the beautiful mural in the background! Bonnie has been hard at work.
An energetic and helpful MCS student cheers for the churches offer of space.
Kay and Lorena setting up the Magnolias temporary classroom in the Toddler Moons space.
Kate and Cinthya hard at working helping their fellow teachers set up and clean up.
Dear MCS Families and Interested Community Members,
WOW!  The outpouring of love and concern is truly incredible. A huge thank you to our enthusiastic staff who have assisted in the clean up, transport, and set up of new classroom space.  We are very excited to get back to it on Monday.  We miss the children very much.
As you can see from the photos above, we are making a lot of progress here at the school.  The teachers are working harder than ever and their love of the students is evident in their care and attention to setting up the classrooms. The teachers will be sending detailed emails so that you know what to expect for Monday. Thank you for your patience as we prepare.
A few recent updates:
  • The road is still not fixed at the school’s entrance.  We are hopeful that it will be fixed by the weekend.
  • At this time the building has no heat. (We are grateful for the warm weather!) We hope to have a temporary boiler in place by Monday. It will be a smaller unit that will heat our upstairs.  We will have to purchase a new boiler and hope that the transition will be as unobtrusive as possible.  We have some temporary heaters to supplement the heat from this smaller unit until the new boiler is in place.
  •  We are working on a list for volunteer opportunities.  So many of you have been so generous with your offers to help.  Up to this point we have not known areas where you can assist.  However, we anticipate that we will need assistance in the future.  Once we have created this list we will share it with you.
With thanks,
MCS Administration

Charitable Giving From Our PSA President

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

Hello MCS Parents,

It’s that time of year again, yes, already! Giving season! We are already being solicited to make year-end donations to various nationwide and local charities, as well as to volunteer our time and various skills. Every year we are compelled to give our support to those less fortunate than us or to causes that we feel passionate about.

One of the goals of the MCS teachers is to instill in our children a sense of responsibility to give back and support causes that are meaningful to us as a group and individually. One of my goals, as PSA President, is to help us, as parents, understand where our donations through school supported organizations are going as well as to make sure we understand who and what our donations/fundraising efforts are supporting. I also want to work with you to combine our giving efforts in the hope of making a larger impact.

With that being said, the PSA is heading up the outside fundraising efforts for the school this year. I have a lot of charities in mind but could use your help. I would love to hear back from you about what compels you to give. Who do you feel is a group really making a difference? Is it the food bank, the homeless shelters, renewable energy groups, clean air groups? Do you work with or for an organization that is making an impact locally? Where or who will you support, either financially or with your time, this year? Are any of you closely involved with a charitable organization that you would like to see the MCS community rally behind? I want to hear from you! Let’s join together as a group and really make a difference, while fulfilling the education and outreach component that is essential to our children’s classrooms.

This year, the PSA and the school would like to direct support to 4 areas of interest for our MCS families: our Navajo Grandmothers, our students in Ethiopia, the local charity that the parent community chooses, and MCS’ Classroom Giving Tree.

Our schools ongoing support of the Navajo Grandmothers has created a long-standing relationship with the Adopt a Native Elder program. We sponsor two Grandmothers: Elvira Horseherder and Emma Bahe. The Navajo Rug show is coming up this November 7th – 9th at the Snow Park Lodge in Deer Valley—Park City, UT. Our Kindergarten students and our 3rd year students will be attending this event November 6th and 7th. Prior to this event, the school will be collecting items such as: Coffee, Chicken Ramen, Tea, Quaker Oats, Meal, Salt, Spam, Baking Powder, Jello, Sugar, Peanut Butter, Canned Fruits, Veggies, and Soups, Graham Crackers, Spaghetti, Cornflakes, Pasta Noodles, Shortening, Household Items, Toiletries, Clothing, Tools, and VISA Gift Cards. VISA Gift cards are especially lovely, as our Grandmothers do not have a lot of space in their vehicles to bring items back to their home. They can also use the gift cards to purchase the much-needed firewood to heat their homes through the winter.

MCS sponsors 7 girls through the Children of Ethiopia Education Fund. This fund exists to empower young girls in Ethiopia from impoverished circumstances to have a quality, private education through generous sponsors and donors.  Around the holiday season we collect items and money that goes directly to our girls to continue our sponsorship and to heighten and brighten their holiday season.

Classroom specific giving is a way for us to directly impact the learning and growth of our kids. This year there will be a giving tree in the lobby that contains tags for each classroom. On the tags will be items the teachers ‘wish’ to have in the classroom selected from Montessori Services, Small Hands, and other places. It could be a need that the teachers feel would enrich the class environment or a replacement for a work that has been worked and loved hard over many years.  Come the end of October, there will be a tree set up in the MCS lobby with tags color coded for each classroom and specialty class. There will also be envelopes that will allow you to anonymously donate money toward an item or a classroom.

Please know that I understand we often feel overwhelmed by groups asking for our support. We may feel that we are being asked to often or for too much. But, these giving options are here to offer you a place to give if you feel compelled. There are no obligations or requirements to give. You can give a little, a lot, or not! We are trying to give you a heads up as to what is coming so you may make decisions on how or if you would like to proceed as far as giving and donations this year.

I am really looking forward to hearing from you about the charities that mean something to you and your ideas about where the PSA can help direct the giving of our community.

Again, your feedback is so important. Please contact me directly about this and any other parent community issues or ideas you would like to share. After your feedback, a decision will be made as to which charity/ies our school will support this year.

Thank you,

Ann Beverly

PSA President

 

Lost and Found

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

Luckliy, we have not found any elephants or chickens, but we have found some very nice jackets, coats, towels, books,  lunch tupperwear, and many other various items. You may find all lost and found items on a table in the lobby.
Our lost and found needs your help! Please stop by and see if anything belongs to you.

Speech and Language Screening will be September 9th

Written by Foothill Montessori on . Posted in Blog.

ATTENTION MCS PARENTS:

Speech and Language Screening will be September 9th. The screenings will be a brief measure of your child’s speech and language skills in order to determine if further speech and language, or hearing evaluations are needed.

The speech and language screening will take approximately 10-20 minutes to complete. After the completion of the screening, we will identify if there are concerns regarding your child’s speech and language skills or hearing. A note will be sent home with your child regarding the results of the screening and if further assessment is warranted.

You might consider having your child’s speech, language and hearing screened if your child shows one or more of the following:
· Your child has a difficult time learning and using new concepts and vocabulary
· Your child has had chronic ear infections
· You and others have a hard time understanding your child’s speech. Your child’s speech is less intelligible than their peers
· Your child does not combine 2-5 words in their speech
· You suspect your child may have a fluency disorder: stuttering
· Your child has difficulty asking and answering “wh” questions
· Your child becomes easily frustrated when trying to tell you something

·See www.letstalkspeech.com for more information on speech and language delay warning signs

Speech and Language Screening is $20.00
Speech, Language, and Hearing Screening is $35.00
Checks can be made out to Let’s Talk! Speech and Language Therapy
* Please find registration forms in the lobby area.

Why is Grace and Courtesy a big deal in Montessori?

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As you may already know from your communications with your child’s teachers, MCS classrooms begin the year with a heavy emphasis on our Grace and Courtesy curriculum.  The article below, written by Edward Fidellow, will help you understand the benefits of a Grace and Courtesy curriculum and might offer some ideas how to reinforce the lessons at home!

Happy Reading!

 

Why is Grace and Courtesy a big deal in Montessori?

Edward Fidellow

 

www.crossmountainpress.com

You cannot observe a Montessori classroom for even a short time without coming away with an impression that Montessori children are by and large very polite, orderly and impressively quiet and serene. This atmosphere is created by the lessons of “grace and courtesy”. Grace and courtesy – good manners, caring about each other, putting others first – are solid virtues that make possible the extraordinary academic gains of a Montessori classroom. Grace and courtesy is one of the non-traditional academic foundations of a successful Montessori education. It is significant even beyond the academic accomplishments that your child will achieve in Montessori.

Many lessons in Montessori (and life) are learned obliquely or indirectly as a by product of other lessons. (For example, in Montessori all of the lessons of practical life are really preparations for reading and writing.)

While the exercises of grace and courtesy are tremendously valuable all by themselves they also lead to four significant outcomes.

While the Montessori environment is a classroom of individual learners, each progressing as quickly as they can, it is also a community of learners who help, encourage and teach each other. The courtesy of using an inside voice so as not to disturb their classmates; the courtesy of walking so as not to disrupt the learning going on is just the beginning of creating a unique learning environment. Sharing the learning materials, waiting your turn patiently, preferring and helping each other transforms the classroom into an oasis of peace where concentration and learning can happen. Valuing community is a significant outcome.

Second, grace and courtesy leads to the most significant lesson in life – how to love. Love is the ability (and the desire) to put someone else’s needs in front of yours – wanting the best for them. Whether it is holding a door, letting them go first, or doing what pleases them, love is a great lesson (most often demonstrated in small actions and ways.) Grace and courtesy is the doorway to love.

The third benefit of grace and courtesy is the building of self respect. Interestingly, when we are kind and courteous to others we like ourselves better. The young child cannot articulate all the conflicting emotions that are part of growing up but the structure of grace and courtesy helps them enjoy the feelings that come from a calm and orderly environment. They are much more at peace with themselves when they are at peace with their neighbor.

The fourth benefit is that grace and courtesy contributes to the development of self control. Grace and courtesy give children an external set of markers that they internalize and practice which in turn leads them to change their own behavior. This is the first step to controlling themselves. Self control will lead to focus; focus will lead to accomplishment; accomplishment will lead to success.

Not a bad byproduct for “Please” and “Thank you”.