The Compass 4-24-2020

Looking Ahead:

Apr 20-30: Online Gala Auction, see below
Apr 24: Raffle Drawing, see below
May 1: May Day, see below
May 9: School Year 2020-21 signed Tuition Agreements due
June 11: Summer Camp Open House, 1:00-2:00
June 15: Children’s House Summer Adventure begins

Extracurricular Activities:

Contact Julie Boss, TCH parent and Extracurricular Athletic Coordinator at (248) 535-1713 or at boss.julie4boys@yahoo.com with questions or ideas. Details on sports, clubs, and after school programs can be found on our extracurricular page.

Points of Interest:

The Children's House Blog
A Space to Grow Food for the Community
By Jamie Schaub
Right now we have over 1,500 plants started in the greenhouse that will grow to provide produce to local food pantries. Since 2017 I have spent my summers helping manage Poesis Farm more...

Other Notes:

Summer 2020
It is with great hope and excitement that we look forward to our summer program starting June 15. We are following the guidance of public health and government officials with regard to our COVID-19 response. We will keep you updated if there are changes to the summer 2020 schedule and you will not be charged for any weeks that our summer program does not operate because of COVID-19. Contact Kim Gallagher with questions.

Online Gala Auction: Open Now Through April 30
While we can’t gather for our annual gala, we can still hold our auction online! Bidding is open now and will last until 8 p.m. on April 30. Start bidding here! (We only included the items that we had in-hand by the last day of school, so not all classrooms have completed art projects or baskets available for bidding.)

Annual Raffle
Today is the day! The raffle will still be drawn at 7 p.m. on Friday, April 24 for a 50/50 grand prize (up to $25,000), a second prize of $1,500, and an Apple Watch as the third prize. Tune in to watch the drawing live on our Facebook page. Tickets are $100 or 3 for $250. Email Renee by 6 p.m. to buy last minute tickets! Raffle license #R55811.

May Day
At The Children’s House, we have a long standing tradition of pausing each year on our journey around the sun to honor the coming of spring. On May Day, we gather to recognize the astronomical midpoint between the Vernal Equinox and the Summer Solstice. Our celebration starts with the crowning of the new May Queen, complete with hand picked bouquet and student created scepter. The primary children don handmade hats, carry “branches of May,” and dance around the May Pole holding ribbons the colors of spring flowers. The May Day Carol is sung, and Wild Mountain Thyme is performed by the elementary musicians. It’s a pause before we enter into the year end traditions such as camping trips, a visit to the dunes, graduations, and the Dance of the Cosmos.

This year we cannot be together in person, but we would like to celebrate together through sharing what we do at home. We invite you to take pictures and/or videos of your celebrations at home and add them to the May Day Dropbox link so that we may share them with the entire community. In addition to the ideas shared by classroom teachers, Amanda has provided Ukulele Chords and tutorials for Wild Mountain Thyme on her Music page and Brenda has provided the Beltane cookie recipe on her Kitchen page.

Have fun, be creative, welcome in spring and share it with all of us! Happy May Day!

Parent Business Directory
Did you know there is a directory of TCH family-owned businesses in the Parent Portal? If you own a business and are not listed, please let us know by completing this Google form. The harsh economic impact of COVID-19 is just starting to be realized. Please support TCH family-owned businesses.

TCH Facebook Community
In an effort to connect our school community even more, a private Facebook group, The Children’s House Community has been created. Please join to share ideas and swap items. The Children's House is a certified Green School. Having a way to give extra life to items your children outgrow helps support this initiative. You may post items that you need, want to sell, trade, or give-away. Please invite other TCH parents.

Amazon Smile - You Shop. Amazon Gives.
Amazon will donate 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to The Children's House. AmazonSmile is the same Amazon. Same products, same prices, same service. Support The Children's House by always starting your shopping at smile.amazon.com.

Start here: https://smile.amazon.com/ch/38-2536891

You can now support The Children's House Montessori School of Traverse City in the Amazon shopping app on your Android device (not yet available for iOS). Learn how:
https://smile.amazon.com/bnode=15576745011&ref_=pe_732550_434054570

If you find yourself accidentally placing orders on Amazon instead of smile.amazon.com, this Chrome extension will help: https://nevernotsmile.org/

Compass back-issues