Dear MA Families & Friends,

You’re receiving your Buzz a bit early today because of our Winter Concert tonight at Forest City Community Church. We hope to see you there!

TODAY: The Winter Concert at 4 p.m.

Join us tonight at 4 p.m. for our annual Winter Concert at Forest City Community Church – 3725 Bostwick Rd.

Google Map to the venue: https://goo.gl/maps/2nq6Xk4MPbs4vwJz6

The students will be bused to the venue this afternoon for final rehearsal. The children will remain with their classroom teachers for the entire performance; we ask that families wait until the end of the concert to retrieve their children. 

Some parking notes: Please do not park along the sides of the driveways leading in and out of the lot; they need to be kept clear for emergency vehicles. There is plenty of parking around the far side of the venue.

Micro-economy goodies for sale

Please remember to bring some change to the concert to purchase some delicious treats baked by our Junior High students. Here’s a quick video message from Abeti and Elle, two of our Junior High bakers, in this week’s video album: https://montessori.myschoolapp.com/app/detail/album/video/899266

Admissions update: Sibling Applications

Applications to MA for siblings of current students are due by Friday, January 17 to reserve a spot in our programs for the 2020-2021 School Year. Due to CCEYA and programming requirements, positions in certain programs are limited and we would like to provide priority to our current MA families.

If you would like to submit an application for a child in your family, please login to the MA Parent Portal. The online application can be found in the Resources section – accessible from your home page.  Or, you can access the application here: https://montessori.myschoolapp.com/app#login/apply.  

Offers of Admission for siblings of current students will be provided through the MA Parent Portal in March.

Financial Support for 2020-2021 school year

Information regarding the Anne Marie Harding Financial Support Program was sent home to all families last week on Friday.  A copy of the letter can be found on the school website through this link.  Financial Support is available to families with children in second year Casa through to Junior High, and who have been enrolled at the school for at least two consecutive years.  

Applications are due by Monday, January 6. For more details, please visit the Financial Support section of our website: https://montessori.on.ca/admissions/financial-support/.  Or, if you have additional questions please contact Victoria at 519-433-9121 ext. 211 or vlittle@montessori.on.ca 

Communicable illnesses – updated chart

The Middlesex-London Health Unit has updated its Guide to Common Infections (PDF download) to reflect new policies on excluding students from participation at school. It lists the common illnesses we’ve noted in our Communicable Illnesses chart in the Parent Handbook. An updated Parent Handbook exists on the school’s website’s Forms & Policies page and in the Resources section of the MA Parent Portal. 

The changes also affect the chart in printed Year at a Glance Calendar’s second yellow tab section “Information & Involvement.” On Friday, we will send home a sticker with an updated Communicable Illnesses chart; we encourage you to place the sticker over the outdated chart for your future reference.  

Speaking of what’s available on the MA Parent Portal …

What’s new on the MA Parent Portal?

As we begin to use more of the features of the MA Parent Portal, we will provide updates on new ways you can use the portal and documents you can find on it.  In a few weeks, progress reports will be available through the portal, but in the meantime, you may want to acquaint yourself with the new Resources section. There you’ll find three boards: MA Forms, MA Policies and button linking to the Sibling Application form. 

Forms now available on the MA Portal:

• Individual Medical Emergency Plan
• Type 1 Diabetes Individual Medical Emergency Plan
• Epi-Pen Consent Form
• Authorization for Drug Administration Form
• Extended Hours Request Form

Policy documents now available on the MA Portal:

• MA Parent Handbook 2019-2020
• MA Code of Ethics
• Application and Enrolment Policy 2019-2020
• Google Apps for Education Policies (2 documents)

FYI: These are the same documents are housed on the school’s website under the Our Families tab. 

Today is Giving Tuesday!

For the last few years, Giving Tuesday has grown in popularity across North America.  What started as an unofficial kick-off to the holiday giving season has now become a recognized day that helps charities receive donations and foster awareness of their causes.

As a registered charity, Montessori Academy of London looks to supplement our operational costs with donations from our families, friends, community and foundations.  To make an online contribution to Montessori Academy, please visit: https://montessori.on.ca/get-involved/ways-to-give/

Putting the Puzzle together!

You may have noticed that our puzzle in the administrative office is starting to get filled in.  If you have made a donation to our Annual Appeal, or are going to, please stop by the front desk and ask for a piece to colour and add to the poster.  The more colourful, the better!

Swimming world champion returns to MA!

One of our alumni, Maggie MacNeil, stopped by Junior High last Thursday to chat with the Upper El and Junior High students, and she brought CBC Sports with her. Maggie was filming a CBC Olympics feature content for CBC on an influence in her success, and she chose to speak about her time at our school! Maggie also showed off her Gold and Bronze medals from the Aquatic World Chamionships this summer, and talked about everything from working hard to achieve one’s goals to her favourite subjects when she was a student at MA. She even demonstrated her uncanny ability to remember birthdays! 

We are grateful that so many of our alumni visit us to reconnect with the staff – and that they realize what a positive impact their Montessori education and time at our school has had on their success. What better testimonial can you get than that?

Congratulations to Maggie on all her success in the water. Next up for her is officially qualifying for the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer. We are so proud to know she is well on her way to representing our country – and school! 

More Photos from Maggie’s Visit on Thursday: https://montessori.myschoolapp.com/app/detail/album/photo/898605

Tasty practical life skills

Every Tuesday and Friday the UE1 students are allowed to bake. William and Elle stopped by the office last Tuesday afternoon with the day’s baking project: *triple* chocolate cookies. Um…. YUM!

Our newest babysitters

The babysitting course was a great experience. We learned how to become responsible babysitters. Every week since September we would meet in UE1 on Thursday mornings for the course. We followed our babysitting student manual and each week we learned something new like how to feed, dress and bath a child. We had Jessica, a new mother, come in with her baby and show us what she carried in her diaper bag. She had lots of stuff like diapers, teething toys, and formula. Kristen who taught us the babysitting course taught us all we need to know how to protect and take care of the child we babysit for. We learned to stay calm in emergencies and be there for the child. The babysitting manual she gave us has all the information we need to help us through a tough situation. We took a pretest and then studied for our real test. We all passed and everyone was excited to receive their babysitting certificates. We would all like to thank Kristen for teaching us this valuable course that made us become babysitters and will help us throughout our entire lives.
By Layan and Mackenzie

Upper Elementary biology lessons

Last week our Year 5 and 6 students had a grand old time in science class. The Year 5’s inspected owl pellets to retrieve the bones of the owl’s prey – mice, and then put the mice skeletons back together. In Year 6, the students dissected frogs to gain a better understanding of the organs.

From the Community

Our research focuses on understanding the development of individual differences in reading and math abilities in children and adults. We are currently embarking on a research project (Parents And Children: Measuring Academic skills using Neuroimaging, or P.A.C.M.A.N. for short) to try and better understand what happens in the brain of 10-14 year old children while they read and do math. We are also interested in investigating similarities between children and their biological mothers as they engage in reading and arithmetic tasks.