Looking for Healthy School Lunch Ideas?

It can be a challenge coming up with new ideas for school lunches.  If you're lucky and your child's school has the ability to heat up food that expands the menu a little but most schools don't have that option. 

Here are a few basic recommendations:

1. Portions - There are so many great containers out there that offer 3 compartments for food portions. 
2. Variety - These same portion containers allow for variety in your child's meal.  Mixing up a fruit, vegtable, protien, dairy and/or carbs provides healthy variety.
3. Nutrition - Most kids like to see a sweet treat in their lunches but be sure to balance that with some more nutritional options too.  If you do provide a dessert, then there should be a solid main dish and side along with it.

Once you have the basics down it's finding ways to mix things up.  Sandwiches seem to be a staple in most school lunches.  They are great but you can even play with those, make a wrap using a tortilla or take away the carb element all together and just wrap meat and cheese in a roll up.  Fruits and veggies cleaned and cut up should be a staple in every lunch.  My kids enjoy dipping their veggies in ranch so if you need to add a dip for them to eat their veggies, then go for it!  Pretzels, goldfish, veggie chips, pita chips are a few of the alternatives to potato chips. 

For other fun ideas check out these helpful articles:

30 Ideas for School Lunches - http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/recipes/healthy/ideas-kids-school-lunches

40 Healthy School Lunch Recipes to Make for Your Kids - http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/40-healthy-school-lunch-recipes-make-for-your-kids.htm

Healthy School Lunch Ideas for Kids - http://www.healthychild.com/healthy-school-lunch-ideas-for-kids

Helpful Montessori Resources

Many parents are just learning about Montessori education, along with their children.  Though it's been around since Maria Montessori opened the first school in Rome, Italy in 1907.  The philosophy is still rather new to many parents in the United States.  We thought it might be helpful to share some useful resources on the philosophy and how it works.

The Montessori Foundation- A non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of Montessori education in the U.S. and abroad.  Programs and resources for parents, teachers and students.

Living Montessori Now - A website with inspiration and information for parents and teachers. 

American Montessori Society - Order, independence, cooperation, respect. Bring Montessori into your home with the American Montessori Society.

International Montessori Society 

Montessori Primary Guide - A useful site with good explanations on Montessori and all it's environments.

Montessori Materials - A site created to help parents and teachers create Montessori materials on their own.

If you have other resources you have found helpful please feel free to share in our comments section. 

Fun Ways to Save and Display Your Child’s Artwork

Is your child bringing home multiple pieces of their school artwork a week?  Do you have trouble finding a place to store all of it?  This is a common problem in many households, you don’t want to throw away something your child has spent time and put their heart into creating, but do you really want to save all of it.   There are some good solutions to this dilemma.  One of my favorites is creating an art portfolio through photographs.  Why not create a coffee table book of your child’s artwork?  There are a variety of sites that can help with this, photo sharing sites such as shutterfly, flickr, and smugmug .   These sites can display the artwork in albums that you can share with your family.  They also have the option to create a photo book using the images of your child’s artwork.

Something even easier, if you have a smartphone, would be to download the artkive application. This is a fun application where you can create a profile for each of your children then take a picture, using your phone, and upload them.  The application boosts it’s use with three easy steps:

1.  Create it - Your child comes home with art or schoolwork they've created
2.  Artkive it - Use Artkive to take, tag and store an image of their work in just seconds
3.  Enjoy it - Turn your child's Artkive into a book or other great gifts and keepsakes

“The clutter-free way to save and enjoy your child's artwork!”

If you are an instagram user, you should also check out this printing site prinstagr.am.

These are great ideas for gifts and wonderful keepsakes that your children will enjoy looking through as they get older and could even one day share with their children.

If you have a creative way of saving your child’s work and artwork for please share your ideas.

Nut-Free Resources for a Nut-Free School

Peanut allergy is a type of food allergy distinct from nut allergies. It is a type 1 hypersensitivity reaction to dietary substances from peanuts causing an overreaction of the immune system which in a small percentage of people may lead to severe physical symptoms. It is estimated to affect 0.4-0.6% of the population.  - Wikipedia

We are proud to be a Nut-Free school, but realize that it comes with restrictions to families who are not used to having to be as aware of food labels.  In support of the families in our school we have created a list of helpful resources so you can learn more about Nut allergies.  Many of these sources also provide snack ideas and food tips to help out when you are preparing your child's lunch.

If you have anything to share or come across useful sites, please leave a comment with the information.

Helpful Resources:
The Nut-Free Mom
http://nut-freemom.blogspot.com/
Peanut Free Zone
http://www.peanutfreezone.com/
An Elementary School Snack List - Nut-Free
http://www.100daysofrealfood.com/2011/08/22/an-elementary-school-snack-list-%E2%80%93-nut-free/
Feeding Carl (for people with multiple food allergies and sensitivities) http://feedingcarl.com/
Peanut Allergy (News, Information and Support)
http://www.peanutallergy.com/
Kids with Food Allergies
http://community.kidswithfoodallergies.org/
Allergy Eats (Online Guide to Allergy Friendly Restaurants)  http://www.allergyeats.com/#

We are proud to be working together to create a safe and healthy community!

Welcome

Cosmic Montessori School is a unique community of educators.  We represent a variety of cultures that have come together to create an ideal place for exploration, constructive experiences, movement, discovery, communication, and friendship.  Our campus is very proud of all of our 'Green' efforts, we aim to be paperless, use organic cleaning supplies, have an organic garden in our outdoor community and will continue to expand our efforts.  We also provide healthy snacks and have an optional organic hot lunch for all of our students.

We are a community which believes that education involves the entire family.  In order to achieve our and your goals for your child, Cosmic Montessori School helps parents, friends and family develop environments geared towards learning, reinforcing lessons and activities practiced during the child's school day.  We achieve this by focusing on these principles:

•  Children take a natural pleasure in learning to master their environment
• This mastery is the basis of the sense of competence necessary for independence
• Real learning involves the ability to do things for oneself, not the passive reception of a body of  knowledge
• School must be part of the community and involve the parents if education is to be effective.