Post Oak School News 20072008

Vol. XIII, Issue 13: December 14, 2007

Magic Beans?

4600 Bissonnet • Bellaire, TX 77401 • 713-661-6688 • www.postoakschool.orgFounded in 1963; accredited by the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI)and by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS)

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I M P O R T A N T D A T E S

D E C E M B E R 1 6 – 2 2

Thu. 12/20

All ASEP I classes end

Eid-ul-Adha

Fri. 12/21

Last day of classes (see p. 3) Regular dismissal schedule

No Aftercare available

Sat. 12/22 Winter solstice

D E C . 2 3 – J A N . 5

Winter Break12/25 Christmas

12/26 Kwanzaa begins

1/1 New Year’s Day: happy 2008!

J A N U A R Y 6 – 1 2

Sun. 1/6

101st anniversary of the first Montessori school, 1907

Epiphany

Mon. 1/7

SCHOOL CLOSED Teacher in-service day

Chistmas (Orthodox)

Tue. 1/8

Classes resumeNo ASEP until Jan. 14

Wed. 1/9

Upper School parent coffee “Art at Post Oak” with art specialist Luiza Grandchamp 9–10 am, Reading Room

Thu. 1/10

Alumni Night 7–8:30 pm, Gym

Al-Hijra (Muslim New Year)

by John Long, Head of School

T H I S A N D T H A T

One by one, he spooned the beans from the little wooden bowl on the left to the little wooden bowl on the right. This three-year-old wasn’t eat-ing; he was transferring beans, for no adult purpose, from one bowl to another. He held the demitasse spoon with a three-finger grip, in the way that an architect holds a pencil or a surgeon holds a scalpel.

These comparisons are not lightly made: Montessori often spoke about one activity being remote prepara-tion for another, more sophisticated activity. And the preparation of the hand is one of the noblest aims of the Montessori Primary classroom. In The Ascent of Man, Jacob Bronowski

says “The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.” In other words, cultural advancement results from the work of the hand bringing forth the ideas generated in the imagination. This is an adult process of creative invention.

When does the preparation for this process begin? For Montessori chil-dren, it begins at the earliest age, with the preparation of the hand. I went after school to try my hand at spoon-ing beans. The spoon felt small in my hand. And getting one bean and only one bean on the spoon took more hand control than I had imagined.

But what I hadn't fully anticipated was that my attention flagged after the first three or four beans. When I

PAGE 2 Friday, December 14, 2007 THE POST OAK NEWS

About The Post Oak News

• The Post Oak News is published weekly while school is in session.

• It is distributed each Friday to the oldest child in your family.

• It is also available at the school’s web site: www.postoakschool.org

• The deadline for material to be considered for inclusion each week is 5 pm on the Tuesday preceding the publication day.

• Please send text or images in electronic form (email or disk) to Post Oak Director of External Affairs Joseph Lockett: josephlockett@postoakschool.org

• You may also call Joseph if you have any questions: 713-661-6688 ×149.

Any child who is self-sufficient, who can

tie his shoes, dress or undress himself,

reflects in his joy and sense of achievement

the image of human dignity, which

is derived from a sense of independence.

— Maria Montessori

Post Oak Scenes: Small Hands, Big Work

Practical Life is a hugely important area in the Infant and Primary curriculum. Children use real, adult tools to do real, adult work: cutting paper, mixing or slicing up food, washing dishes or tables or mirrors.

THE POST OAK NEWS Friday, December 14, 2007 PAGE 3C

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The 2008 Post Oak Fund: Outlining Excellence

Total parent participation as of Dec. 14: 94% Only 12 families

to reach 100%!

Friday 12/21 Is Regular Dismissal

Our last school day in 2007—Friday, December 21—is a full academic day. All students will be dismissed as for a normal Friday:

11:45 Half-Day Infant Community 12:00 Half-Day Primary 3:00 Full-Day Infant Community 3:15 Full-Day Primary 3:30 all older students (Elementary & Middle School)

But No Aftercare on Friday 12/21

The only difference from a normal school day on Friday, December 21, is that no Aftercare will be available; all students, including students with expanded-year contracts, must be picked up at the times listed above.

Please arrange to pick up your child at regular dismissal time or for her or him to ride with someone else.

Registering Siblings for 2008–2009

We are still accepting applications for siblings of current students. The application deadline is January 18th and, although a tour is not necessary when submitting an application for a sibling, I would like the opportunity to meet you if we haven’t done so already.

Don’t forget to sign up for our ongo-ing parenting classes. The classes are a good way to meet prospective parents, and an even better way to share your own (or your child’s own)

“Montessori Moments.”

I look forward to seeing those applications!

Vivian Blum Director of Admission

Campaign Updateby Christina Kopanidis-Cantu,

Director of Development

What an amazing way to end 2007!

We are incredibly close to reach-ing 100% of our parent participation goal. Your contributions have helped us reach our financial goal, and any additional gifts will only benefit the school that much more.

Thanks to each of you for generously supporting the school and getting us to this point so early in the school year. With only twelve families to go, let’s try to reach 100% participation by December 21.

Pledge reminders will be mailed next week and again in the spring.

PAGE 4 Friday, December 14, 2007 THE POST OAK NEWS

Post Oak Welcomes New School Counselor

Important Dates for 2008–2009

Watch The Post Oak News and our website for more information about next year’s academic calendar. Here are a few dates we have already determined:

Aug. 17–22 First week for Elementary and Middle School

Aug. 25–29 First week for Infant Community and Primary

Nov. 26–28 Thanksgiving Break

12/22–1/5 Winter Break

Jan. 19 Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday

Feb. 13 Teacher in-service day

Feb. 16 Presidents Day holiday

Mar. 16–20 Spring Break

May 25 Memorial Day holiday

May 29 Last day of school

I’m pleased to announce that I have appointed Phylis Tomlinson as school counselor for The Post Oak School. Phylis has nearly thirty years’ experi-ence as a school counselor in private independent schools (Beren Academy, Presbyterian School, The Kinkaid School) and public schools (Spring Branch ISD) as well as in private practice.

Infant Community Transition to Primary:

Parent MeetingOn Thursday, January 17, from 9:00–10:30 am, Lower School Director Kathy Long will present to parents of Infant Community children the transition process for children moving into Primary.

If your child is currently enrolled in Infant Community, then this class is for you. Here is an opportunity to prepare yourself for the changes that come with this move. The class will include a brief tour of the Primary pods so we can compare the similari-ties and differences between the two levels.

Kathy has offered this class for the past five years, and parents have found it to be helpful, informative and reassuring. RSVP to Kathy Long.

Infant-Parent Classes at the Motherhood Center

Session II starts the week of January 14 and con-tinues for seven classes. The registration form and more information are available on the school website under “School Community.”

This year we are holding Infant-Parent Classes at the Motherhood Center, located at the corner of Timmons and West Alabama. Infant Community teacher Susan Tracy directs these classes for infants from two months to crawling and for babies who are crawling to walking. Space is currently available in these classes. Please contact Kathy Long if you have any questions about registration.

by John Long, Head of School Phylis will be on campus Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00 am to 1:00 pm. She will also be available to attend parent-teacher conferences as needed.

Her role will be to provide assistance to classroom teachers in response to their written requests for help with individual students or classroom dynamics. Initially, she will observe in all classrooms so that she is able to see the faculty and all of the children at work.

Below: New school counselor Phylis Tomlinson gets acquainted with Kathy Long.

THE POST OAK NEWS Friday, December 14, 2007 PAGE 5

Houston Arboretum Offers Winter Camp

Join the Houston Arboretum & Nature Center Naturalists for a fun-filled winter camp experience. Explore a winter world with active, hands-on indoor and outdoor adven-tures. Limited spaces are available.

Classes are from 9 am to 3 pm, Wed, Thu, & Fri, January 2–4, 2008.

CSI: Critter Science Investigators Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Survivor: Move it or Snooze it! Thursday, January 3, 2008

Cool Critters and the Fabulous Forest Friday, January 4, 2008

Fees for members are $170 for all three days or $60 per day. Non-members pay $220 for all three days or $75 per day.

Registration forms are online at www.houstonarboretum.org/winter-camp.asp. Select one, two, or all three days. Classes are for age groups of 5–6 yrs, 7–8 yrs, and 9–12 yrs of age.

San José Clinic Food Drive

On behalf of the San José Clinic, we would like to thank all who donated food in the Middle School’s recent drive. The clinic was very grateful to the Post Oak School for filling their food pantry. They plan to use the food in an upcoming holiday event, where it will be distributed among the patients. Once again we would like to thank you.

Carson Brink, 7th grade for the Middle School

Post Oak dads are getting together! A new Dads’ Club is being formed, and the first gathering will be held on Sunday, January 20th. Each and every dad from Post Oak is invited to attend.

Time and location to be announced… but there will definitely be plenty of food and beverage (and football). At this great event we hope to get input from attendees on future Dads’ Club meet-ings. See you there!

RSVP (acceptances only) to Jeff Sills (sillsfamily@mac.com or 713-591-1669).

Hey, Dads!

Join the

Club!

PAGE 6 Friday, December 14, 2007 THE POST OAK NEWS

Green Grows Here: Saving Electricity

Overheard in Primary

by Barbara Hacker, Primary Teacher

Sometimes the “green choice” is also the most economical choice. A case in point is the choice we all must make about our electrical usage.

There are really two choices regard-ing electricity. The first is to choose the source; the school has already made the green choice by selecting a company that employs non-polluting wind power to generate electricity. The cost is comparable to the coal-fired generators that put carbon into the atmosphere. The second choice that really can save money is to choose actions that result in a reduc-tion in the amount of electricity used.

The drop in temperature over the last week probably caused many to flip the switch from “A/C” to “heat.” As a native New Yorker with a more heat-sensitive internal thermostat than most Houstonians, I chose “off” as my setting of choice, wore long sleeves, and put an extra quilt on the bed. I was cozy and my utility bill was dramatically lower.

At Post Oak, we don’t have the “off” option. As with many buildings of the era of our school, both A/C and heat are from the same source and the thermostat is set to either one or the other. Windows do not open, and the inside temperature is always gen-erated from an electrical source.

The next step we can take to save electricity will require the effort of the whole Post Oak community. Since “off” isn’t an option, we must try to conserve our heat and A/C by closing doors, the major escape route for heat and A/C.

Some of our doors have hooks to prop them open, originally installed to facilitate an adult leading a group of very young children through the door. What typically happens is that the doors get left open. I have discov-ered that my Extended Day children (ages 4-6) do not need this aid. We did a lesson on “passing the door” in which the children were shown how to place their hands on the metal bar (not the glass) and hold the door open as they pass through, checking to see that the next person has it before let-ting go. Since children of this age can do it, so can older children and adults.

If every teacher gave a lesson on how to pass the door and why it is impor-tant, we would have taught an impor-tant life skill as well as saving energy. Now what about the young Primary children and infants? Passing the door is a challenge for them. Couldn’t we arrange for an older child to have the job of going with them and hold-ing the door?

If every adult and child kept an eye out for doors opened unneces-sarily, and closed them, maybe we

could really reduce our considerable electricity bill and use the money saved in other areas. Watch for a chart, coming soon, with our month-by-month electricity usage for last year and a comparison of how much we are currently using! Let me know if you are willing to help and if you have any other ideas on saving electricity.

An adult skill: Extended Day children “pass the door” to ease the trip to dismissal without having to prop doors open.

“Are you putting colors on top of colors?”

“Yes; it’s like a Van Gogh.”

— Connor, age 4

Barbara Hacker, a member of Post Oak’s “Green Team,” has taken the lead on inves-tigating ways for the school to conserve electricity. Here she presents some ideas for use within the school.

THE POST OAK NEWS Friday, December 14, 2007 PAGE 7

It’s almost opera season! We will give periodic updates on the opera process via The Post Oak News.

Our first order of business is to cast the show and pick the crew children. We need children to fill many differ-ent roles in order to make the show a success. Roles will be filled accord-ing to the age, abilities, and interests of the children.

Next week, the children will hear a brief presentation about the show in their classrooms. We will describe the show and the process of how we will all work together to create the end product. We hope to generate much enthusiasm for the event.

Children will be given a form to fill out in the classroom, with the guid-ance of classroom teachers. In sum, we will ask the children to indicate whether they would like to be a per-former in the show or whether they would like to work on the crew.

In addition to stage performers, we need a large “crew” of children to play important roles in the produc-tion. Crew children will help with sets and props, program and t-shirt design, ushering, ticket design and sales, and even assisting with social events to help raise money to support the production. It will be great fun for all involved! Serving on the crew is a great role for the artistic child or the child who feels hesitant about per-forming in front of a crowd.

Performance opportunities will include singing and dancing with a group, singing with a small ensemble or performing a brief solo (about 15 parts available), being part of an

acrobatic troupe, playing an instru-ment during the performance, or serving as the narrator for the show. One child will be selected to play the role of Harlequin, a more substantial vocal responsibility.

For children interested in perform-ing solos or acrobatics, there will be an audition on January 14, 2008. Vocal soloists will all audition with the same material. Vocal solo mate-rial will be distributed on Friday, December 21, for practice over the holiday break. Children will not need to prepare anything for the acrobatic audition. We have asked musicians and gymnasts from the community to assist in the casting process. These will be professional and impartial members of the Houston community. What a great opportunity for the chil-dren to audition before these folks!

Vocal roles will be assigned accord-ing to which part fits a particular child’s voice. The majority of the solo roles will be reserved for chil-dren in Upper Elementary, with a few brief roles going to third-grade children. Younger children and older children who will not be soloists will be assigned to group roles, primarily according to age and size. In our past productions, the younger children en-joyed performing in group roles and looked forward to the day when they might try for a solo!

Our goal is to make all children feel that they are a special and impor-tant part of this production. Parents can help by encouraging children to select an area of interest that best fits their own unique skills and talents.

Let the excitement begin!

Opera Update: Auditions Imminentby Jennifer Norten & Claudia Rojas,

Opera Co-Chairs

The Post Oak School Opera 2008 presents:

Harlequinan Italian

Renaissance story about Carnival

an opera written and directed

by Sanford & Judy Jones

Opera Week: Mon–Fri, April 7–11, 2008

Performance: Friday evening, April 11, 2008

Episcopal High School auditorium

PAGE 8 Friday, December 14, 2007 THE POST OAK NEWS

his Montessori education. Can every sixth-grade student draw equally well? No, he has a special gift. But then that is another dimension of Montessori education: to help each child identify and develop such indi-vidual interests and gifts.

Were those magic beans? No, but somehow they were transformed into the Taj Mahal. Come see for yourself.

Magic Beans? by John Long, Head of School continued from page 1

Copyright John Long and The Post Oak School. Originally published December 9, 1997.

had watched the young boy at work, he stayed with this task for fifteen minutes or more. I remember hear-ing that young children have a short attention span. This is simply not true. Work like this, structured on an individual basis for the very young child, leads to the development of an increasingly long attention span.

The child has freely chosen the work, and stays with it for as long as his interest holds firm. The act of choos-ing helps to develop initiative. The very young child’s natural tendency toward repetition of an activity, which is allowed and encouraged in a Montessori classroom where the children are not interrupted by an arbitrary schedule, leads to long peri-ods of deep concentration.

And spooning beans? For a three-year-old, there does not need to be a product to make the activity sat-isfying; he is more interested in the process of the work itself. Using the spoon, using the hand, seeing the pile of beans in the bowl on the left grow smaller as the pile of beans in the

bowl on the right grows larger: all of this is interesting to a three-year-old.

Where does this all lead? On the wall in my office is a very large drawing of the Taj Mahal, done by a sixth-grade student at Post Oak. His draw-ing skills are light years beyond my own. The choice to do this drawing, the perseverance to stay with it over a matter of days, and the hand control that is the foundation of his drawing skill are all impressive outcomes of

Maps Mold Minds

Maps are a big part of the Montessori curriculum. Primary children soak up words in the environ-ment, including the names of countries in the Puzzle Maps (above left). By Elementary, children use Pin Maps to learn details—names of mountain ranges, rivers, cities, etc.—for all parts of the world.