Service, both inside and outside of the school community, is a strong value at NHMS. I would like to express my appreciation to all of the adults and children who are involved in our community service projects throughout the year. I would also like to recognize the projects completed and ongoing and the people who have made them possible.

Manna on Main Street -  Cecilia Beck, Upper Elementary

Families in each class have generously responded to their Class Coordinator requests to send in snack items for the Boys and Girls After School Program run by Manna on Main Street in Lansdale. This project will continue through the end of the school year. Thanks to the Class Coordinators who make the calls to parents and Cecilia for spearheading the project and taking charge of deliveries each month.

Pillows for  CHOP Oncology  - Keri Kelly, Children’s House

In honor of Valentine’s Day, Children’s House students made pillows for the oncology floor of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Children who knew running stitch or cross stitch worked on the pillows with the help of parents.

Once the pillows were stuffed and sewn together, they were sent to CHOP as a Valentine to the children in the oncology unit. What a thoughtful way for our children to interpret Valentine’s Day.

Bake Sale for Haiti -  Lower Elementary

Children in Ms. Fastiggi’s and Ms. Robinson’s rooms decided to donate their Bake Sale proceeds to a Montessori School in Port-au-Prince, Haiti devastated by the earthquake. I applaud the children’s global outreach and thank all the bakers in Lower Elementary.

Linus Project -  Marilyn Miller, Upper Elementary

Thank you all for your generous contributions of yarn and blankets! The yarn will be used to create blankets for needy children in our area. Thanks to all the families for their beautiful handcrafted blankets.

If your family wishes to continue to collect yarn or create blankets for the Linus Project, here is the link to their site: http://www.projectlinusmontgomery-buckspa.org/ .They are always in need and appreciate your contributions.

Laurie Stulb, Head of School

School will be closed on March 25 & March 26, 2010 for Spring Conferences.

New Horizons opens her doors, inviting all to come and see.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 9-10:30AM

New Horizons Summer Art and Nature Camp

for NHMS Children’s House students

Eight week camp for children of the ages 2.7-5

June 14 until August 6, 2010

Led by Children’s House Guides Joan Raiti & Sutapa Bakshi, campers will explore different cultures from around the world and interact with the natural wonders of our own backyard!

For more information & to sign up please call

Joan Raiti, 215-542-0740 x31

Enrollment is limited to 20 children

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.

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 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.

For those who were not able to be with us,

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