The Happy Montessori School of Port Washington
40 Pleasant Avenue 
Port Washington, NY 11050
516-883-1131

January 2008

Dear Parents:

We hope you had a wonderful holiday season.  We enjoyed sharing festivities with your children, and are now happily planning more exciting winter events.  February will be a particularly busy month, with class plays (look for more notes home on this) and our Community and Careers theme.  We would like to enlist your help in making our Community and Careers month a success.

First, we would like to invite you to participate in Community and Career Month.  If you would like to come in and do a presentation about your job, or if you have any hobbies or skills that you think the children would benefit from hearing about, we would love to have you visit.  The children are delighted when we have visitors, and your own child will be quite proud to see you talking to his or her class.  If you’d like to visit, just let us know what your topic is and when in February you’d like to come in (and remember that we are closed the week of February 18 – 22).  Plan to spend approximately 20 minutes on your activity, and plan to have a lot of fun!

Among our other planned events, we will visit Little Smiles dentists, King Kullen Grocery store, and a pet store.  Let us know if you would like to accompany us on any of these visits.  Musicians from the iSchool of Music and Art will be coming for an interactive performance (and to teach us about careers in music).  (By the way--the children are making instruments in anticipation of the musicians’ visit, so if you have any empty yogurt, sour cream, margarine, or frozen juice containers, please send them in.)

Another aspect of our Community and Careers theme will be that of helping our neighbors.  We will be making a kindness chart in which each act of kindness toward one’s classmate earns a heart.  After we fill the chart, we will use the proceeds (the “love”) to bake goods for senior citizens who receive services through the Family and Children’s Association (you can read more about this organization at FamilyandChildrens.org).  We would also like to give a cash donation to the Association to provide grocery store gift cards to these seniors, who have fixed incomes and few resources.  If you can donate, please send in a check in any amount, made out to the Family and Children’s Association.  The Association will, in turn, be sending letters to all of the children, reinforcing the theme that a community is built on mutual care and effort.  If you wish to donate, please do so by February 8 as we would like to deliver our baskets as a Valentine’s Day gift to the seniors. 

Please let us know if you will be able to participate in any of these activities, or if you have any questions or suggestions. 

Best wishes,

Amrit Sethi and
The Happy Montessori staff