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.