October is upon us and with the changing seasons, we have some exciting news in this month’s newsletter!

I am grateful to see MCH back in the swing of things and look forward to settling fully into our family’s fall routine. I hope you all are finding your rhythm as well as enjoying meeting new members of our community. Our first coffee meetup at Evans Creek was a success and we are excited to see that the community is ready to get out and create new connections.
 
On October 18th, the Parent Association will kick off our annual SEED fundraising campaign. SEED funds all our activities during the year and every student benefits from these programs. Throughout the month, we will share more information about our programs with you, but to summarize, SEED covers:

• Sponsorship: Short term tuition assistance and sponsored programs
• Extracurricular: Field trips, education specialists, and special events
• Enrichment: Special projects and classroom enrichment materials
• Development: Staff professional development and MCH community development

This is an especially important year for SEED, and we look forward to your gift to the 2021 fund!

Be on the lookout for more Parent Association events that will be announced soon, including an evening virtual event coming up and a discussion about books and podcasts. Harvest Fest is just around the corner, and we are excited to see what the school has planned!

I hope to get a chance to meet up and speak with more of you as the year continues. Please feel free to reach out at any time with your questions, comments, or ideas.

Sincerely,
Susan Smith
President, MCH Parent Association

Please join the MCH Parent Association for our Annual Meeting.

This short get together will provide members of the Parent Association an opportunity to review the previous year’s financial report and learn about the current year’s budget and board priorities.

The meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 8th, 2021, from 7:00 PM to 7:15 PM via Zoom. 

Please contact us for Zoom access information.

We hope to see you there!

Thank you to the families who were able to join us for our first coffee meetup in September. It was a soggy day, but we had a good time chatting about hobbies, summer travel stories, and simply getting to know each other.

We have two more meetups planned in October - please join us!

Our first meetup will be an easy walk/hike on Thursday, October 14th at Soaring Eagle Park in Sammamish. We'll be there, rain or shine, to enjoy a walk in the woods with fellow MCH parents. Meet at the main entrance between 9:30--9:45 am, and we'll head into the forest for about 60--90 minutes, depending on participants' availability. Soaring Eagle's main entrance is located at 26015 E. Main Dr., Sammamish. You can find out more about the park on the King County Website.

Our second meetup will be held virtually on Tuesday, October 19th. Join us on Zoom from 7:30--9:00 pm(ish) to plan our upcoming Book/Podcast Circle. Help us explore topics, select content, decide when we'll meet, and other details. We might even throw in a few games just for fun! While this event is geared toward parents, it will certainly be child friendly. We'll enjoy some social time from 7:30--8:00 pm, and then games and the main discussion will start at 8:00 pm. Join when you can and stay as long as you like. Please contact us for Zoom access information.

If you are interested in the Book/Podcast Circle but cannot attend the virtual planning meeting, please contact us to be added to the communications.

These events are hosted by the Parent Association and not affiliated with the school. Please wear a mask to all in-person events.

Children are doing a great job wearing their masks…most of the time.

Wearing a mask properly is a new skill that takes time and practice to normalize. If your child shows some resistance or is experiencing mask fatigue, these ideas may be useful. 
 

1. Empathy: It's always helpful to notice and validate whatever emotions children are feeling.
2. Kindness with firmness: Practice creating connection with empathy and respect AND following through on what is required: in this case, wearing a mask.  
3. Ask, don’t tell: “What needs to be over your nose right now?” “How can you keep your mask on your face and still be comfortable?” “What ideas do you have?”  “Looks like you want to throw things with your friend. What can you throw, and where can you do that?”
4. Limited choices: “You can wear your mask and we can go meet a friend for a walk, or we can stay home without masks and play a game together. What would you like to do?”
5. Encouragement: “I notice that you kept your mask on during circle time. Thank you.”
6. Practice at home (take time for training): Invite young children to put masks on their stuffed animals or family members during play. This helps address mask-wearing when the child’s brain is calm and receptive. 
7. One word: For older children, a simple “Mask” might do the trick (avoiding lecturing or nagging).

Adapted by Julie Miller, MS, RDN Positive Discipline Parenting Educator, original credit to Cheryl Erwin, MA, MFT, Positive Discipline Lead Trainer

During the Parent Association’s August meet-and-greets, we heard from several people who wanted to connect with other MCH families to plan playdates or get to know parents in our school community. Transparent Classroom is a helpful tool for this if you want to reach out to other families directly.

Simply log in to your account and click on "Classmates" (in the left-hand sidebar) to see the names of the other students in your child’s class, as well as their parents’ or guardians’ names. 

Right underneath "Classmates," you can also click on "Directory." The “Parents” tab lists contact information for any parent, in any classroom, who has agreed to share their details with the MCH community. This is a voluntary feature, so contact information is only listed if the parent has consented. If you’d like to add or remove your information in the Transparent Classroom directory, or if you need help logging in to your Transparent Classroom account, you can reach out to office@mchkids.com.

​Want to get to know your child’s teachers? Looking for ideas for staff gifts for the holidays? This summer, the Parent Association worked with MCH to create profiles for each staff member. Thanks to the hard work of MCH’s administrative staff, these are now available in Transparent Classroom.

The profiles include birthdays, favorite activities, foods, and gift ideas. The PA will be using them for staff appreciation activities throughout the year, but they’re a fantastic resource for anyone in the MCH community looking for fun information about the people who work with your kids each day.

To access the profiles from Transparent Classroom, click on School Info and select your child’s class. Scroll down to the “Fun Facts about Montessori Children’s House Staff” section to click on this year’s profiles. 

Then scroll to click on each staff member’s name by department or classroom.

​The Parent Association wants to learn more about our parent community! We've created a short survey to better understand how you'd prefer to work with and hear from us. The survey is completely voluntary, but your responses will help us shape our outreach this school year and into the future.

Click here to access the survey through Google Forms. The survey has only seven multiple-choice questions, and we appreciate you taking a few moments to fill it out. We hope to see all responses by Friday, October 20th. 

​If you make purchases on Amazon, we encourage you to check out the AmazonSmile program. It's an easy way to support charitable organizations (like your Parent Association!) with every eligible purchase, at no cost to you. 

The program is available at smile.amazon.com on your web browser and can be activated in the Amazon app for iOS and Android phones. When you select a charity, AmazonSmile will donate 0.5% of your eligible purchase to that organization. If you'd like to support the MCH Parent Association, please click here: smile.amazon.com/ch/91-1960800https://smile.amazon.com/ch/91-1960800. 

If you do choose to support the PA through AmazonSmile, we sincerely appreciate the support. Every penny counts!

The MCH Parent Association would like to welcome you to the 2021-2022 school year! Did you know that as a parent of an MCH student, you are automatically a member of the Parent Association? 

I'm Susan Smith, the newly elected president of the Parent Association Board, and I work with a group of experienced individuals to find ways to help you, our parent community, feel supported by and integrated with the school. We are excited to build our community this year and find new ways to encourage our parents, students, staff, and teachers to bond during these unique times. The board is here for you if you have any questions about being a parent of an MCH student and how best to acknowledge our staff and teachers throughout the school year. 

The Parent Association is a non-profit organization that hosts staff appreciation week, holds community enrichment events, and helps fund scholarships for our students. These programs are all possible through the generous gifts we have received through our SEED campaign, a fundraising campaign you will see more information on later this fall. 

We value your input in our community and will be reaching out to you throughout the year via this newsletter, word of mouth, and the occasional email to ask for feedback and volunteers to assist at various events. 

Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions. I look forward to meeting you all and, again, welcome to the MCH community!
Sincerely,
Susan Smith
President, MCH Parent Association

Over the past year, MCH had provided loaner laptops to some students when they needed to school at home. Many of those laptops are quickly coming to the end of their useful life.

The Parent Association is soliciting laptops from the community to have a small stock ready to go should students need to school at home again this year. If you have a laptop that meets the following criteria and are interested in donating it, please contact us.

• No more than 5-7 years old
• Windows operating system (we cannot support Macs or Chromebooks)
• The battery holds a charge for at least 2 hours
• Has a power cable

Thank you in advance! We appreciate your consideration and any donations you can make.