Spaghetti Night

A fun time was had by all at the first Sunflower family dinner. The kids all ran around and played ("We're loud, growling bears who play hide n' seek!"), Katie's daughter Justice taught an impromptu origami class, and the parents got to know each other.

I put all the photos from the dinner at the new Shutterfly site. If you haven't joined yet, you should. Just click the link below, include the name of your child and I'll add you asap.

http://sunflowermontessori.shutterfly.com/

We all decided the dinner was a good first try, and we should do it again next month, but with more wine. All in favor?

-Brooke

April Lunch Menu

Books For Sprouts

Miss Jenn, the Sprouts teacher, just let us know her classroom is in need of a new books. If you have any gently-used storybooks or picture books at home that your children have outgrown, please consider donating them to the Sprouts library! 

UPDATED: Next On The Social Agenda... Spaghetti!

As a way of promoting a sense of community at Sunflower, the school will be hosting a monthly family-style dinner. The dinners are casual and free, and a great way to meet other families and take a night off from cooking. The first dinner will be held next Tuesday the 26th at 5:30pm in the Elementary building. There are sign-up sheets at the sign-in tables at each building (just to let the school know how much spaghetti to prepare). 

Hope to see you there!

UPDATE: From 5:00-5:30pm (right before the dinner), we'll be holding a Parents' Open Forum to sell you a time share in Hawaii discuss upcoming events, suggestions for school improvement, etc. You don't have to attend the forum to come to the dinner.

-Brooke

Sunflower's Irish Soda Bread

• 4 Cups Flour
• 4 Tbs Sugar
• 1 tsp Baking Soda
• 1 Tbs baking powder
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 Cup Butter, Softened
• 1 Cup Buttermilk
• 1 Egg
• 1/4 Cup Butter, melted
• 1/4 Cup Buttermilk

Heat oven to 375. Mix flour, sugar, soda, baking powder, salt & butter. Stir in 1 C buttermilk and egg.  Turn dough onto lightly floured surface & knead. Form dough into a large round and place it into a lightly greased pan.

In a small bowl, mix melted butter and buttermilk. Brush loaf with this mixture. Then, using a sharp knife, cut an "X" on top of loaf.

Bake 45 min.

Photo Booth / New Picture Site

Morning, parents!

There's a new photo-sharing Shutterfly site for Sunflower - it'll be a great place to securely share the images from school events. I set it up as a Members-Only site, so only Sunflower families and teachers will be able to access the photo albums.

http://sunflowermontessori.shutterfly.com/

I sent out member invitations to everyone I remembered taking a photo of last night, BUT:

If I missed you, let me know! Click here and send me an e-mail and I'll add you asap. Some families didn't have an e-mail address in the directory, etc.

If you want to go ahead and be added now for future events, that's great - send me your e-mail address and the name of your child and I'll add you. 

If you got the invitation but didn't attend the party, it's possible your child was "helping" me set up the booth, and I grabbed a few shots while school was still in session. 

Technical issues? Let me know!

-Brooke

Oh, What A Night

Whew!

I hope everyone had a great time at the party. 

I had a great time meeting all the kids who came through the dress-up photo booth. I saw princesses and pirates and pirate princesses and reindeer-pirate-hula girls. And that's just the teachers:

I'm in the process of uploading all the kids' photos to a password-protected photo site. Stay tuned for a follow-up post tomorrow with directions on how to access the site. I'm also determined to post Grandma Midge's recipe for irish soda bread, because I swear it tastes like french bread and pound cake got together and made a baby. 

Thanks to everyone for such a fun night!

-Brooke

Are You Prepped To Party?

Don't forget the St. Patrick's Day Party is TONIGHT!

Party starts at 6p. If you can come a little early to help with set-up, great!

The corned beef is on the stove, the silly photo booth is being set up, 

and the raffle prizes are waiting to be claimed. 

Here's a sneak peek at the Passports To Fun. 

Earn tickets! Make a fool of yourself! Win prizes!

SEE YOU THERE!

Sending Out An S.O.S.

Fellow parents:

The St Patrick's Day party is just a few days away, and we could use your help in a few areas:

1) SIGN UP - There are sign-up sheets at every sign-in table. Come to the party.

2) VOLUNTEER! (PRETTY PLEASE) - We're looking for some volunteers to help with set-up. This should be relatively painless - come an hour early to help with decorations, put out the food, etc. If you live close to the school, you could even donate space in your oven for bread-baking. If you hear the term "Parents' Association," and you imagine a bunch of Stepford Wives in heels and pearls, let me disabuse you of that notion. I don't speak for all the members, but I for one am a hot mess, and could use some help hanging streamers. Send us an e-mail if you're interested in volunteering.

3) DONATE! - Every year, Katie and Correy host a raffle and sell tickets to help with fundraising. If you own a business that can donate an item, or if you're a photographer, handyman, web designer, chef, what-have-you and want to donate an hour of your time, that'd be awesome. They'll also be selling T-shirts at this event, like the one in the photo.

4) BRING YOUR "A" GAME - We're doing a "treasure hunt" this year so families can spread out amongst the three Sunflower buildings and your kiddos can earn tickets to redeem for prizes at the end of the night. For those who attended last year's party, this should solve the problem of everyone being smooshed into one room and forced to carry on sparkling conversations with strangers while simultaneously wrangling a plate of corned beef.

For all of you who were wondering, I cornered Correy the other evening and asked her the question on everyone's mind: "Can we bring beer to this thing?" And the answer is YES. Sunflower isn't providing it, but you can BYOB and no one will judge you. I for one will applaud you.

Looking forward to seeing you all on Thursday!

-Brooke

Swing Into Summer At Sunflower

Fellow parents:

Do you lose every piece of paper that comes into your house? Me, too! How were we not friends before this, when we have so much in common? I have car registration due, and a one year-old who puts everything he touches into the trash can. I'm counting the days 'til an officer gives me a ticket which I will (let's all say it together) immediately lose.

As a public service, I've scanned the Summer Session Paperwork as a downloadable pdf. Fill it out. Turn it in. Reserve your spot. Preserve your sanity.

Happy Friday, everyone!

-Brooke

Montessori At Home

We love baking together in our home.  The girls LOVE to help me bake cookies, cake, bread, and all other wonderful and yummy foods.  However, they haven't been as interested in cooking with me.  I have heard for years that if you get your children to cook with you, they are more likely to try the foods that they have prepared.  I tried, they refused.  One of their least favorite foods is soup.  I would eat soup several times a week if I could get away with it, so their refusal to even try it drives me slightly crazy.  When I was researching "Montessori cooking" on the internet I found a great blog about making soup with children.  I planned to make soup together on Sunday afternoon, but as the weekend progressed I realized that wasn't going to happen.  My thought is "maybe next weekend", but I wanted to get this information on the blog to you all so maybe you call can try it next weekend with us.  I have my fingers crossed that my girls will turn into soup lovers after our time cooking together, or at least soup "toleraters".  

Potato Soup And The Montessori Method

click here

There was a tip I saw on another site that I wanted to share.  If you have a gas range & are reluctant to cook with your children over an open flame consider using an electric frying pan on a counter away from the stove, or at the kitchen table.  

-Laura Thompson

Lacey & Calla's Mom

A Wealth of Information

Hello, parents!

One of the biggest topics of conversation at our last Parents' Association meeting was how best to distribute information to fellow parents. I know it may seem like we went from too little information to so much information, all over the place. Keep in mind that we're a relatively new organization and we're still figuring out the best way(s) to keep everyone in the loop. Here's where things stand now:

FACEBOOK - Will be used for short, informational memos and reminders. The content posted there can also be found on the blog, but it's a nice of-the-moment resource for getting info out to parents. If you haven't "Liked" Sunflower yet, you should. Click here. 

THE NEWSLETTER - The formerly 15-page newsletter is being trimmed down to one page of the most important bullet points to be distributed via e-mail with everyone's monthly invoice. The larger stories (Meet a Family, Montessori at Home, etc) will be moving to the blog. This will save time and paper. Amongst the trees, there was much rejoicing.

THE DRY-ERASE BOARD AT SIGN-IN - As always, your first line of defense. Katie and Correy will continue to update the info boards, and we'll copy the important info to facebook and the blog. 

THE ASSOCIATION BLOG - Or, as we'd say in Alabama, "this-here blog." This will be the catch-all location for tidbits of interest, longer news stories, teacher curriculum posts, etc.

So... what do you think is working? 

What could the Association do better? 

Let us know in the comments or e-mail us by clicking here.

-Brooke

March Lunch Menu