Dear Parents,

Everyone had a great time on January 16, when we celebrated our Hump Day. It is hard to believe that we are now in the second half of the school year. All the classes took a day off from their busy schedules to relax and spend some casual time with their teachers. They shared popcorn, cookies, and other goodies. The students also played with their toys and games. What they enjoyed most was watching movies. Students at Riverside Campus watched "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "National Geographic" videos. Freeport campus students watched "Star Wars" and "Fly Away Home." Thank you, parents, for the movies and all the yummy treats you brought in.

We thank all of our parents who made it to the Kindergarten and Elementary Open Houses, on the 27th. The students from our elementary classes demonstrated various materials, after having a pizza party. Sara, Harsheel, and Danielle from Anne's class presented their work, as well as the Internet, the school home page, and GLOBE studies to everyone who came by. Many of the parents were quite impressed with the number of papers the students write each semester. From Heidi's class, Colin, Daniel, Carlos, and Elisa presented math, strips, grammar, and French. From Anastasia's class, Valerie, Jimmy, Lauren, and Katie presented cultural, language, math, and French. From Ranji's class Elisabeth, Randy, and Chelsi presented geography, math, and language materials. They all did an excellent job. We are very proud of them, and they really enjoyed showing their work. We would like to thank all of the families who turned out. It was very nice to see the interest.

Even though we provide many different opportunities during the year for the children to visit the Freeport and Riverside Blvd. campuses, we held a special class visitation day on Friday, the 23rd. The children had a great time spending the morning with the older classes. Several of the third graders wanted to spend the entire day in Heidi's class, so we let them. We will also be glad to schedule an observation for you. If you did not attend the open house Tuesday evening, your 1998/99 summer and fall applications and registration forms are attached herewith. We are still formulating the additional programs during the summer such as art, music, and computer camps. Please let your feelings be known.

Returning students and their siblings have priority registration during the month of February. There is also a significant amount taken off your application fee, if you register your child prior to April 17. Open enrollment begins March 1.

We have talked yearly about the successes that our students have had when they go to high school for several reasons. First, just to show how well they do no matter what school they choose to go to. Second, many parents are concerned that if they attend our elementary school they will not be able to get into Catholic high school. Our only response is that every child that has gone through our program has been accepted to the high school of their choice. So, please do not worry about high school, just make sure your child does their work here, through their different stages of life, and all will work out fine. At times that is a bigger challenge than you think.

We thank the parents who attended our Let's Talk Workshop on January 15. The topic was a review of the results of our Questionnaire that went out last November. We had summarized the responses of each question on the questionnaire, and passed out the results. That way everyone could get a feel on the attitudes of the families. Overall, it was very positive. We still have copies of the results, so if you would like a copy, just stop by the office. We are also still open for your response by turning in those questionnaires with your comments and concerns, any time. We think that the questions, suggestions, and concerns raised by the few parents who participated, would have represented those of many parents who were unable to attend. Some of the suggestions that were made never occurred to us.

We are taking steps to offer some services in response to our parents' suggestions. One such service would be the milk program. We are awaiting the responses this week, from the fliers that went out last Friday with the weekly newsletters. Hopefully, there will be a large enough response, so we can start the program next week. We would like you to know that many other requests that you brought up have received our attention. However, it will take a while before we can evaluate what we can change or add in the near future. Some other ideas, that we have not had time to check out, were to have a taco or hot dog day once a week, or see if Vic's market could provide meals. Another idea is for the adolescent class to put on a soup and salad bar once a week. This would provide an alternative to hot meals and break the routine of fixing lunches every day. We are trying to find solutions to concerns. Please keep the information flowing in.

We typically offer other Let's Talk workshops to show our traditional Montessori materials and other topics of interest. Attending these workshops will help you to become familiar with all the different names of activities your child does when we mention these names in our weekly newsletters, as well as giving you an overview of what we do here. Please send in suggestions as to what you would like to find out about. We also have the new issue of Tomorrow's Child that has articles on the elementary program. They are available at the office.

Keeping this in mind, we hope you will make an effort to attend our second Mortensen Math workshop to be held on Saturday, March 7, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. The workshop is free to parents of children in the school. Please contact Steve if you are interested in attending. We would like to have an audience of at least 9 interested parents to make it worthwhile.

The students in Anne's class have started learning Latin as their second foreign language. Anne started this after discussing the benefits of Latin at the Adolescent conference that she attended last December. The other addition to the curriculum is the school's new farm site. Last year, we showed a video from the American Montessori Society on adolescent programs, and they stressed the value of getting the children out of the classroom and out to the country to work on projects outdoors. We had tried different ideas, such as working in the vineyards in Lodi a couple years ago, but the commitment from the sites did not hold up. So we are going to go to Sonoma, to Anne's mother's property. She has 3 acres and there are 3 acres sites on both sides that we may be able to work on. Anyway, there are enough projects right now to keep the children busy for a long time. The first visit was last week and the children spent the morning walking the site, which included a hike to the top of the hill on the back of the property with a view of the Sonoma countryside. The nature trails were abundant and the children were really excited about the trip. Then, they returned for handbell choir practice.

The adolescent class is also preparing for their Internship Week (February 23 - 27). In this program, the students go out into the community and work at a business, 8 hours a day, for the entire week. Anne comes by a couple times during the week to see how they are doing and review the progress. If anyone would like to have an intern for that week, please contact Anne as soon as possible, as the students are setting up interviews. This program is a great experience for both the students and the businesses.

The students of fourth grade and up took part in the Sacramento Bee Spelling Bee. Harsheel, who is a seventh grader won the school Spelling Bee. He will be taking the written exam on February 7, at the Sacramento Bee, hoping to move on to the regional finals. Results will be announced in February. We congratulate Harsheel and wish him the best of luck!

School will be closed on Friday, February 13, in observance of Lincoln's birthday, and on the following Monday, February 16, in observance of Washington's birthday.

Our next Continent Party will be February 6. All the elementary classes are studying the continent of Africa. Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Zanzibar, Libya, and Kenya are the countries that will be represented. The children really look forward to this event as they learn about many different cultures. They also get an opportunity to sample food from all these countries. Please contact your child's teacher if you have anything you would like to share. We appreciate anything from books, to music, to recipes, to family vacation pictures.

All the classes will celebrate Valentine's Day, Thursday, February 12. Please check with your child's teacher about party times, and treats, etc. If your child wants to bring valentines, please make sure he/she brings in valentines for every child in the class to avoid hurt feelings.

Our yearbook is in the process of coming together, and we still need pictures from willing contributors! Please send any adorable, funny, poignant shots to Steve as soon as possible. We will only return the pictures if you ask. If they are used in the yearbook, we will not be able to return them.

The last picture day of the year is coming up. The dates are Thursday, March 5, for the Elementary and Riverside campuses, and Friday, March 6, for the Pre-school. Please note that these dates are different from the yearly calendar.

For those of you who have been by the Riverside campus lately, you have probably noticed that the camellia's are in full bloom. For those of you who have not been by, it is worth the trip just to enjoy the flowers. All of you are welcome to pick some flowers and take them home. Just ask, as we have garden clippers there for your use.

A friendly reminder: We start school at 8:30 in the morning. At all our campuses we start the day with a morning meeting, which is a very important part of our program. We understand that some parents find it hard to bring their children on time. We are sure they have valid reasons. However, when your child walks in late when everyone else is in the circle, not only does your child miss out on important lessons and other activities, the children who are already in the circle get distracted. We have this problem at all of the campuses, especially among the younger children. They stop everything to say 'hi' to the latecomers at different times, or they start making comments. When their concentration is broken, it is very hard to get back to our lessons. Please make an extra effort to bring your child to school on time. Thank you.

SCHOOL FIELD TRIPS

SCHOOL EVENTS and HOLIDAYS