Winter Break Fun

I know that the Winter Break all teachers love can try the souls of parents everywhere. As much as we love spending time with our children, a two week stretch in the dead of winter weather can leave us wondering "what can we do now?" Here are a few humble ideas.

String things! For the Christmas tree or for the birds outside, one can string popcorn and cranberries (fresh or dried) using a needle with a large eye and dental floss or sturdy thread. Don't be a hero. Use a needle threader. If you don't know how to use one, ask for a demo at the fabric store where you buy your needles. Even easier, string Cheerios or Froot Loops and you won't need a needle.

Cut paper snowflakes. I recommend doing this over a basin or large tray to help contain the scraps. Hang your snowflakes up on the windowpanes with clear tape.

Make ornaments or present toppers out of pipe cleaners and colorful beads.

Polish the silver and brass. Use small rags for small hands and a paste of baking soda and lemon juice.

Clean the windows with a spray bottle of a vinegar/water solution and newspapers.

Paper plate ice skating. This works best on wall-to-wall carpeting. Just place each foot on its own paper plate, put on some cheesy music and move the coffee table to the side.

Make paper chains. Any color of construction paper will do or use old magazines. A glue stick works nicely.

Cut up stuff. Children are so curious about what it is like to cut fabric. Perhaps they've taken a swipe at their own shirt. It is fun to cut material, so bring out some worn out clothing and let them have at it!

My favorite idea: Centerpieces. Go outdoors with a laundry basket and collect greenery, pine cones, rocks and moss. Give each child his/her own large tray on which to create a natural landscape. One can add ornaments or a pillar candle. The centerpieces can be re-created each day if one wishes and because they are portable they can be whisked out of the way to make way for the turkey or game of Chutes and Ladders!

We at the Philomath Montessori School wish you all a wonderful Winter Break and a very happy holiday season.

Best regards,
Doni

Sir Ken Robinson

He was the keynote speaker at a Montessori conference that we attended and somehow he was able to be both very funny and very profound.

I was moved to blog about him today because one of our former parents (from way back) sent me the link to a recent video by him called Changing Education Paradigms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

And then you'll want to watch his TED video which is very entertaining and yes, enlightening, too. http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Enjoy!

Santa Lucia Day

Here at school, we are learning about Sweden. Our big celebration will be Santa Lucia Day, which traditionally ushers in the Christmas season in Sweden, Italy and Bavaria. Lucy was a devout Christian girl martyred by the Romans. Today the celebration is a joyful one. Many towns have pageants and contests to select the most worthy girl to represent Lucia. Most families call upon their eldest daughter. She rises early, dresses in a white gown with a red sash about the waist and wears an evergreen crown topped by glowing candles. She may be accompanied by junior attendants, the girls dressed similarly, the boys wearing a conical hat decorated with stars. "Lucia" serves her family a traditional bun called Lussekatte or "Lucy cats."

At school, Raine, who is our eldest girl, will be our Lucia girl. She will wear the traditional costume including a crown made by our very handy dad, Bill and she will serve buns baked by our domestic goddess mom, Barbara. We have been making blue and gold paper chains to adorn the classroom as well as cut paper snowflakes. The kids have been making the starboys' signature hats and star-topped wands, too. We will carry these as we dance in celebration of Sweden and Santa Lucia and Christmas.

Sweden is fascinating. We have told stories about life near the arctic circle and the cold and sparse population which is very similar to the northern Canadian experience. We studied Canada earlier in the year. We have told stories about hotels made of and furnished with ice, the artist Carl Larsson, Swedish gnomes called "tomte" and Vikings. We also discussed how Sweden enjoys a high standard of living including generous vacations and maternity leave, no slums, health care for all and the 50% taxes that pay for all that. Swedes are some of the most content people on earth and they also have a high level of democracy and civic involvement. Go Sweden!

Remembering Chile

We packed up all of our many beautiful Chilean artifacts provided by Lua Siegel and asked the children what they recalled about our unit on Chile. This is what they had to say:
Raine - the collapsed mine and the 33 miners emerging safely
Alleck - the clock made of copper and lapis lazuli
Alleck - the blue-painted porcelain dove decorated with painted feathers
Ezra - the money from Chile in the drawer of the wicker cabinet
Doni - the guanacos in the mountains and the penguins in the polar regions
Eliason - how the Mapuches and the Spaniards divided territory
Raine - the Mapuches chased away the Spanish
Madison - the Spanish captured Lautaro, but he escaped
Hazel - the lapis necklace
Raine - the desert is very hot
Clare - the desert animals look for food at night
Eliason - the miners were trapped under the desert
Shealyn - it was hot underground for the miners

Chile was certainly a very rich unit. Sweden promises to be wonderful, too, although we lack artifacts to show the kids. We will probably emphasize Sweden's Viking history, their current social structure, the indigenous Sami people of the north and the glories of snow, snow, snow. We are already counting to ten in Swedish, singing a song in Swedish that is all about how frogs have no ears nor tails and we are singing a beautiful song in English for Santa Lucia Day. The relevant art activities that Leslie has created for us will keep the classroom feeling festive right up to Winter Break!

Best regards,
Doni

Learning About the Mapuches

We have been learning about some of the indigenous peoples of Chile. We are focusing on the Mapuches, but there were and are also the Picunche and Moluche people, too. This morning, with the whole group present, we learned that the Inca empire once attempted to conquer the Mapuches, but were defeated. The Mapuches built a network of forts for defense which came in very handy when the Spanish later attempted to conquer them as well. They too, were defeated. Then the Mapuches and the Spanish lived in relative harmony, side by side for 300 years. There was trade between the groups and each benefited from the relationship. The Mapuches, for example, adopted horseback riding and the raising of sheep and wheat. The Spanish learned metalworking skills from the Mapuches.

In the afternoon, with the older kids, I went on to tell them about the series of treaties between the Mapuches and the Spaniards and how they, little by little, granted more and more power to Spain. Spain conquered the Picunche and Moluche territories and eventually absorbed the Mapuches as well. Next week we will learn about the civil war that divided Chile between independentists and royalists and the Chilean War of Independence which resulted in a free and independent Chile. Today, Chile enjoys one of the highest standards of living in South America and it is one of the most politically stable countries on the continent.

Best Regards,
Doni

Our Inservice Day

Pauline and I had an enjoyable and productive inservice day last Thursday. It is so helpful to have an uninterrupted block of time to get a project not just started, but completed! We worked on our baking curriculum. We selected three recipes for cookies, muffins and a quick bread and cut down the proportions to very small batches. That math class I took this summer really paid off there! We went shopping for ingredients and materials. We began our search at Goodwill, hoping to economize and be green, but only found one item there. The rest we found at Bed, Bath and Beyond and Fred Meyer. Then we returned to the school to organize our pantry and learn how to use our convection oven. We love the heavy-duty pull-out shelves we are asking Bryan Irwin to install in our pantry. They will make accessing items from that deep, deep cabinet much more manageable.

Baking will be an activity done independently by a child who can read the recipes. We have set some reading standards that a child must achieve to be allowed to bake here at school. Kids love to bake and cook. It is especially meaningful for them to cook with you, their parents. Find tasks they can do on their own and let them help you with the trickier aspects that require close supervision. I really encourage you to make them a part of the set-up and clean-up, too. That is good for lengthening the period of focus and activity, letting them see the entire cycle and teaches responsibility. Food preparation is so basic to life. Let's share it with our kids.

On another note, Pauline filled me in on all the wonderful ideas that the Recruitment Committee came up with at their meeting last Wednesday. That is a group with their thinking caps on. One bit I will share with you is that the committee felt speaking to like-minded groups, such as parenting classes, was a focused way to reach our target demographic. They also felt that parents heed the words of other parents more than those of teachers or other representatives of the school. Perhaps some of you could begin pondering the idea of doing a little public speaking on behalf of our school. The experiences you and your children have had would be invaluable for prospective parents.

Best Regards,
Doni

Remembering Canada

On Monday, October 11, we ended our study of Canada with a gathering. Pauline asked the children what they remembered about Canada and here is what they said:

Ian - spirit quest (for young Haida men searching for their spirit guides and special talents)
Alan - the spirit quest takes place at age 13 and the boys stay in icy rivers until they can no longer stand it, then rub themselves with sticks (branches) until they bleed
Raine - age 11 or 12
Maggie Rose - the fish hook (artifact) with the pointy-poky thing
Alleck - spearing salmon
Clare - the salmon go to the ocean, but start their lives in rivers
Alleck - ping pong on ice (???)
Dhabih - Haida coats made of cedar bark
Hazel - lots of hockey
Maggie Rose - no golf because there's too much water (???)
Raine - very cold
Alan - not many people live up north due to the cold
Kian - "let's sing O Canada!"
Eliason - polar bears that kill seals
Dhabih - ice fishing and how it is done
Hazel - "Are there penguins?"
Alleck - belugas live there
Hazel - Haidas made their boats out of cedar
Dhabih - their boats are called canoes

We ended the ceremony with the singing of 'O Canada' and went to work. We began our study of Chile the next day, coincidentally the day that "Los 33" began to ascend to freedom and out of their dim, collapsed mine. I told the story of the miners and what was happening at that very moment in Chile. It was great serendipity to begin our study on such a joyful note.

Gratefully Yours

I've let too much lapse since my last blog so now I'm going to overwhelm with news! First of all, in case you didn't read the minutes yet, at the auction meeting last Friday evening we found the new chair of our auction fundraiser -- Clara, Maggie B's mom. Yay, Clara!! She has at least two enthusiastic and savvy sidekicks -- Michele and Melissa, former PhMS parents, who ran the auction last year and are back to elevate to a new level again!

You now also know that Audrey, Charlotte's mom, is our new Solicitation chair, Kerry, Clare and Ben's mom, is the Children's Program chair and Janelle, Raine and Mica's mom, will be taking care of our auction booklet. Thank you so much for taking on these big ones!

Lots of great ideas came out of the meeting Friday and we all left feeling jazzed about the possibilities! Please come to the next one!!

Please put on your calendar another event that Clara is organizing -- a wine tasting at Magenta's. It will be Saturday, November 6th from 4:30 - 6:30. Clara did one last year and we hope to have an even bigger crowd this year!

We had a couple of very nice surprises today. Seeing our new gift list this morning Rory, Dhabih's dad, signed up to purchase a new world map for our classroom! Doni and I were ecstatic -- not having such a key material has been exasperating. Well, about an hour later, I see Alleck poring over the geography pictures and then suddenly he's at my chair holding South America in his hand -- the piece that's been missing from our world map!! He found it in the geography folders. Tomorrow the world map will be back in the classroom... complete. Thanks, Rory and Alleck!

Our recruitment committee is meeting tomorrow evening at Mel's home -- also Alleck's abode. It will start at 7:30pm. If you'd like to join us, we'd love it.

Thank you for your support. We are very gratefully yours,

Pauline

A Scintillating Evening

What a treat to hear Dr. Kathleen Lloyd speak Thursday night at our Parent Orientation Part II. Seemingly extemporaneously, Kathleen, as she prefers to be called, made the simple brilliance and still revolutionary truths about Montessori and early childhood development clear to us all. Kathleen distilled the gifts of Montessori to a few clearly articulated ideas and then fleshed out elements with ways to recognize and encourage them. She spoke of independence, spontaneous self-discipline and concentration and how this leads to personal peace. We all discussed our own experiences with children exhibiting these abilities as well as activities that might promote them. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I am told that Dr. Lloyd's lecture on self-regulation is entertaining and mine-expanding. Please help us get the word out. It will be at 6 pm at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Corvallis on Thursday, October 21. We will charge a sliding scale of $0-$10 with all the proceeds benefiting our scholarship fund at the speaker's request. We will provide childcare on-site, but only to our currently enrolled families. Please share this opportunity to hear Dr. Lloyd speak on the profound benefits and means of acquiring self-regulation.

On another note, please don't wait to sign up for Parent-Teacher conferences. Pauline and I need adequate time to prepare to meet with each of you. Please let us know for whom we should prepare! The sign-up sheet is in the hall. A reminder to new families. You do not need to sign up for a pre-conference observation as yours will take place through the window in the door. Only returning families must sign up to come inside.

The weather report for this week looks awesome! I love a clear, fall day!

Best regards,
Doni

The Mighty Salmon

Pauline has really edified myself and all of the children regarding the sacred salmon. She has told riveting tales of their life cycle; how they must spend some time in brackish water for their body to transform from a fish that thrives in fresh water to one who can tolerate salt water. Then, on the return to its spawning grounds, it must reverse the process, again in the brackish water, before swimming upstream to lay/fertilize the eggs and die. She spoke of the harrowing journey over rapids and up waterfalls, how its body is beaten and bruised, how it does not eat at all on the return trip from the ocean and how, weak and starving, it procreates and passes away.

She also taught us about its fins, their names and purposes. The tail is the main form of propulsion, switching from side to side. Only fish's tails move this way. Dolphins, seals and whales' tails move vertically. The salmon's dorsal fins help it to make quick turns, stop and keep itself upright. The pectoral fins are primarily for steering. I am so fortunate to be a Montessori guide. It ensures that I am always learning!

We read a terrific book today called "There's an Opossum in my Backyard" by Gary Bogue. It tells all about the adventures of this backyard marsupial and how it practically becomes a member of the family! One also learns much about the habits of this often disregarded American denizen. Thank you, Barbara and Don Hinds-Cook (library parents,) for selecting it.

Best Regards,
Doni

Our Photo Shoot

Our photo shoot went really well. Nearly the whole class was present and accounted for. I thought this sudden change of routine might be unsettling for an individual child or two, but clearly, I underestimated them. Everyone took direction very well from Jock, our photographer. The tricky part with a group photo is that when the photog makes everyone smile and laugh, the impulse is to look around at one's classmates to see how they are reacting to the funny sound or punchline rather than continuing to face the camera. Jock is fantastic, though and always gets the job done very quickly and efficiently.

We are very excited about our presentation next Thursday, October 7th. It is officially part of the orientation for new families and will provide a good foundation in Montessori philosophy, but all are truly welcome and encouraged to come. This is a great opportunity for any of your friends who are interested in early childhood development, whether or not they are considering our school. Our speaker is Dr. Kathleen Lloyd and I am proud to say I knew her when she was a mere Ms. Do sign up in the hall and let us know if you will be needing the free childcare we are providing.

Dr. Lloyd will be giving a second lecture on Thursday, October 21, sponsored by our school, at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Corvallis. Childcare will be provided free of charge. The topic of this lecture is "Self Regulation" which Dr. Lloyd has studied extensively and how having it or not having it affects one's success in life. I believe she will also offer us guidance as to how we can ensure that our children do indeed develop this pivotal ability. Please invite friends and family to this talk as well. We will be posting flyers for it and will need your help with that. I am to write up a press release, too, which I have never done. How hard can it be? We all wish you a terrific weekend and we'll see you on Monday!

Best regards,
Doni

Ordinary Day

I am writing this for the second time as my post vanished when I tried to "preview" it. Stupid computers! Don't tell the children I said that as they will chastise me for using bad words.

At this morning's group, I told stories about ice hockey, ice fishing, ice skating and ice dancing and how these sports are enjoyed outdoors, throughout the winter (and probably a good portion of the spring!) in the northern regions of Canada. We read a book called "Have You Fed the Cat?" by Michele Coxon. It is about a once-cute kitten, now neglected, who cries to be fed in order to gain attention. It has wonderfully cuddly illustrations and a happy ending. On the playground, we learned the motions to our Canadian folksong "Going Over the Sea." It has the feel of a cadence and makes one want to march about militarily!

The extended day children were, for the most part, quiet, focused and industrious. This gave me the opportunity to go about surreptitiously observing pencil grips. This group is in good shape! We ended the day with a book about a homeless woman who is befriended by some children. It is called "The Lady in the Box" and it is written by Ann McGovern. It is heart-warming and ends positively without tying up the problem of homelessness in a pretty bow. We haven't finished the book yet, but I peeked ahead!

I hope you are all enjoying this unseasonably warm and humid weather!

Thank you!!

We covered a lot at that first meeting. Many thanks to all of you who attended with special thanks to Michele and Melissa for coming AND especially for volunteering to head up our auction fundraiser AGAIN. They know how to make meetings fun -- so don't miss the special auction planning meeting coming up on Friday, October 8. We will provide free child care. We are also very grateful to Alissa for going to pickup our new poster from the printers and to Debbie for taking it to her Fall Festival booth along with brochures to promote our school.

Parlez-vous Francais?

Bonjour!

We have begun speaking French with the children in honor of our study of Canada. This is less of a stretch for our staff than some of the other languages we have explored in the past such as Inuit, Yoruba and Arabic. Pauline and I both studied French in school and Leslie lived for a time in Haiti. The internet is also a wonderful resource. There are websites where one can just enter the phrase one wishes to translate and it spells it out and pronounces it in the language of choice. C'est magnifique!

We are greeting and taking our leave as well as doing the weather report and calendar "en Francais." The children have really embraced it. The enthusiasm that children have for foreign language really varies from child to child and from school year to school year. Some kids flat-out refuse to speak in another tongue! I don't want to brag, but I have been told I have an ear for languages and I certainly do delight in trying. When traveling, I find that most people appreciate it when one makes an effort and I am always so impressed that people from other countries speak English as well as they do!

We had a fire drill today and it went very well. A sense of urgency was definitely lacking, though, in the little boy who demanded to have an on-the-spot discussion of WHY we were having a fire drill. Rest assured, we leave no one behind, not even the most philosophical of evacuees. He came out, trailing the others, hand-in-hand with Leslie.

Looking forward to seeing you at the parent meeting this Thursday!

Regards,
Doni

A Book From Bella!

This past Wednesday, we celebrated the first birthday of the year -- Isabella's! Her actual birthday was at the beginning of August so when we chanted the months as she walked around the sun candle carrying the globe we started with August. It's really a lovely ritual that indirectly imparts the relationship of the earth, the sun,and time. After each revolution we read a brief line from her life for that year. Next we sang Happy Birthday to her, she made a wish and then she blew out her candles -- it took forceful, repeated blows, but she was determined! We each had a chance to wish her happy birthday and give her a hug. The ceremony ended with a gift book from her to the class -- Northwest Baby Animals. It features photos by Art Wolfe -- Doni claims the photos are so cute it makes her tear up! Thank you very much, Isabella!

The Metric System

Some of you already know that I (Doni) took a basic mathematics class at LBCC this summer, three days per week. It was great. Math had always been a blind spot for me and I thought I was just meant for grander things. As it turns out, I just needed a good instructor and text book. It was a great class and it really made me appreciate the genius of the Montessori math curriculum even more. One thing we studied in my math class was the metric system so I was eager to share some of my new-found knowledge with the kids. My dear old dad always maintained that the reason we Americans never made the switch to metric was that we tend to teach it by comparing and converting with our current system. He thought it would be better to just start "talking metric." That makes sense to me. If all of our canned goods and mileage signs were labled with grams and kilometers, I think we'd eventually get the jist.

So we've been recording the temperature in celsius when we give our weather report and today I introduced the kids to the liter. I poured the water from a liter bottle into a clear plastic box that was (nearly) the same dimensions as our largest pink tower cube. The smallest pink tower cube is one cubic centimeter, I explained, and if the largest cube was a box instead of a solid cube, I could fill it with 1000 of these smallest cubes (1 cubic centimeter=1 milliliter). I could also fill it with exactly one liter of water. I'm looking forward to showing some of the kids how to measure our Montessori materials as they can be precisely measured in centimeters being European in origin.

We also looked at some new Canadian coastal First Nations artifacts today including a lovely halibut hook made of wood and bone. We discussed how it wasn't necessary to carve a beautiful bird figure on it in order to catch fish, but that people have a need for beauty and that maybe the carving brought them powerful spirit help while fishing. Alan said, "Hey, there's a fish hook like that in that painting by the door!" He is correct, but in a million years, I would never have noticed! Thanks, Alan!

Emergencies!!

Two emergencies almost back to back! I only remember two other emergencies in our whole 26-year-plus history! At our potluck Saturday, Cian's tearful exit ended up being for, yes, a broken arm -- poor guy. Now it'll be six weeks before he can use that right arm. He came in today with smiles and took a sewing card to his table soon after arriving only to find out that sewing is impossible with only one hand. So we went around the classroom together so I could show him some activities that he could do that only required one arm and we only made it to one shelf before he chose something he wanted to do. A real trooper!

Then today while we were dismissing the morning children Eliason came up to me complaining of a stomachache. I suggested going down to the bathroom to see if that would help. A little later Leslie heard him crying in the bathroom. She brought him back to the classroom and I called Barbara, but while she was on her way Eliason began crying again and Leslie reported that he was breaking out into a sweat. So I called Barbara again to tell her what was happening and should we call 911. Doni did. So within a couple of minutes the Philomath EMTs came and within another 5 minutes the Corvallis EMTs arrived -- I think there were about eight of them in the room! They assessed Eliason and by 12:45 released him to Barbara. Lots of excitement for the full-day children, but they were incredibly calm. They all went right on eating their lunch being very quiet so the EMTs could talk to Eliason. All in all we now suspect it just may have been that trip down the slide that caused the rumble in the tummy:)

The EMTs told us we did the right thing calling them so we won't hesitate to call them again. When something arises that we think warrants it, we will call the EMTs first and then you.

Help with recruitment!

When Carol found out that we needed help with enrollment, she quickly came to me offering to do whatever she could. She asked about doing another Farmers'Market booth and getting fliers up around town. She called right away, but they were all filled up so we are now on the cancellation list. She also took fliers and brochures to spread around town. Thank you, Carol!!

Thank you!!

Many thanks to Lua for signing up to do prepare muslin and burlap squares for our sewing activities and cutting paper for number rolls!

Orbiting Children

We did a fun thing at group this week. We acted out the earth orbiting the sun and the moon simultaneously orbiting the earth. We played some more of this game later on out on the playground. It was not as easy as you might think! First of all, the child playing the earth must orbit the sun at enough distance to allow the moon to fit in between the earth and the sun. Secondly, the person playing the moon has to really haul in order to keep up with the earth. I took a turn playing the moon, orbited twice and had to quit due to dizziness! But it was fun.

For all you stargazers out there, there is a celestial event happening right now you may wish to get in on. According to www.EarthSky.org, right after nightfall, one can see Venus, Mars and the star Spica in close proximity to each other. Venus is the brightest. Mars is the faintest. They will be visible to the naked eye and will be within a single binocular field as well. But be hasty! They will disappear below the horizon 1.5 hours after sunset.

Just in case people weren’t in a back-to-school mindset, Nature helped us out by providing rain and fall-like temperatures for our first regularly-scheduled week. That brought to our attention how many of the kids did not yet have their rain gear here. Not only to children need raincoats with a hood or waterproof hat, but also boots. It is not sufficient to wear boots to school. One needs to have entirely different footwear for indoors than one wears outdoors. That is how we manage to have relatively unsullied carpets all year even with bunches of pre-schoolers trooping in and out. Please do mark the coats and boots with your child’s name and initials. Their water bottles should be marked as well. We’ve already had some bottles go home with the wrong family, so do take a look at it when your child exits the classroom and make sure it is the right one, please.

Our new student, Izel, returned from two months in Mexico City on Saturday and joined us in the classroom on Tuesday. She is already laboring to restore her English speaking skills, but still seems undaunted to be here with us. What a trooper! I know only enough Spanish to make people think I can understand them when they speak Spanish to me. It gets me into trouble! Fortunately, Dhabih, who’s mom is from Chile has promised to help us out linguistically when needed. We are so fortunate to have his help.

We wish all of you a wonderful Labor Day weekend. Maybe take some time to tell your child what you enjoy about your work!

Phases of the Moon

Hi, Everyone!

The beginning of the school year is off to a wonderful start. Most of the new children are entering calmly so we're not needing to help with parent/child separations very much. The returning kids seem thrilled to be back and we're certainly thrilled to see them, too.

We began learning about Canada today. We found it on our North America puzzle map and on our globe and we (actually, I, Doni) sang "O Canada" for the first time. It is a grand national anthem.

We have been and will continue to talk about the phases of the moon. It would be cool if parents could get their kids outside after dark or before sunrise to notice the moon's beauty and its phases. As a refresher, when the moon is appearing narrower, it is waning and when it appears to be growing, it is waxing. The phases are as follows: full moon, waning gibbous, last quarter, waning crescent, new moon, waxing crescent, first crescent and waxing gibbous. Enjoy!

Regards,
Doni

New Kids!!

Our kids were hit high on the cuteness scale yesterday with two kids from the Alba farm. Dave, thanks for bringing in Coconut and Midnight!

Our blog will resume in August! Have a great summer!!!

Board Meeting thoughts

I spent the wee hours of the morning rehashing our board meeting -- how to slash our budget, how to increase our enrollment, and... we could really start blogging! When one of our board members asked us if we blogged -- I looked at her incredulously. Blog!! I don't blog, text, or twitter. Email is as high tech as I get. But then it occurred to me later that I could save ourselves and our parents a big job every couple months by daily blogging instead of the anachronistic newsletter. Parents would probably enjoy getting frequent blogs about what's happening in the classroom and some pics and we could thank parents and families right away -- as we should be doing! So here we are! Our first blog post!