Parents of any current seventh grader who will be Confirmed in the fall of 2018 are asked to attend a mandatory Confirmation meeting in the Cathedral tonight at 7:00pm.  All students and at least one parent should be present.

Please park in the Church parking lot in order to comply with the CCD arrival and dismissal parking policy as listed below.

NEW CCD PARKING POLICY

Please click here to complete the needed paperwork for the next school year of  2018-19.  STM school wants to be sure to secure your child's spot in next year's classes.  Thank you for your attention to this important detail.

DECEMBER HOMEWORK HOUR

The school office will be closed for Thanksgiving break.  Hot Lunch Orders for December are now due.  Please complete the attached form and return it to the school office no later than Tuesday, November 21.  Thank  you!

STM CARES - COAT DRIVE

STM is once again conducting a winter coat drive.  As the weather is getting colder and we are pulling our warmer clothes out of the closet, please consider donating any extra coats, gloves, hats, scarves or boots that may no longer fit or you no longer wear.  The donations will go to those in need in our community.  We would be thrilled to accept your donations through Monday, November 27.   Donations should be brought to Room 8, Mrs. Meehan's room.  If you have any questions, 

please e-mail Mrs. Meehan at  nmeehan@stmschool.org. Thank you in advance!

EXCITING OPPORTUNITY FROM GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY

Your child may come learn a "language" during Extended Day time and earn a reward for their efforts!

 

The  Learning and Development Lab at Georgetown University is looking for children ages 5 and up to participate in some research studies during their free time at STM aftercare! The lab researches how children learn languages and other patterns in the world. For these studies, children play short computer games for twenty minutes with trained researchers. The computer games teach children artificial languages, and the researchers ask the children to speak a few sentences in that language. Children will be given stickers and toy bags as thank yous for their time! If you are interested, please sign and return the attached consent form to STM staff. If you have any questions, please call Jaclyn at (202) 687-2058 or email us at  learninglab@georgetown.edu. We will also be at aftercare on Thursday, 11/16 to answer any in-person questions.

Your kids have been playing all afternoon, moving from one activity to the next.  You realize dinner is 20 minutes away and the house is a mess.  There are toys EVERYWHERE.

• Start young - I tend to think clean-up should be part of play from the beginning.  Even before children can help, you can talk to them about how "we are done playing now so I am going to put these toys away."  By eighteen months to two years old, give them small jobs as part of the clean up.  By two and a half they should really be participating and hopefully by four years old taking ownership.
• Get organized - For kids to be able to put away toys, there should be clear places for toys to go.  This means having a preferably clear bin for each type of toy, a box for puzzle pieces, a cabinet or shelf for puzzle boxes, a big basket for balls or a cabinet for dress-up clothes.  It may take a few months to teach kids where and how things get put away and it is worth the effort.
• Have a consistent plan - If you find your kids do better cleaning up after each activity, make that the expectation.  Better to clean up at the end of the day, that's good too.  Find your plan and then stick with it.
• Everyone cleans - Everyone who gets to play, helps to clean.
• Give warnings - Clean up time is a transition.  Many children benefit from having a warning before transitions. With my own kids, this is "We are done in five minutes, finish up," and "One more minute, do your last thing."  It works best if you say the same things for each warning and mean the same amount of time.  If sometimes when you say "five minutes" you mean two because you are in a hurry or you mean twenty because you get distracted, your warnings aren't very helpful.
• Clean-up songs - Every preschool teacher and most of the parents I know sing "Clean up time. Time to clean. Everyone is helping."  That's a start. Google "clean up songs" or "clean up games," there are lots.
• Divide and conquer - Several children working together can distract each other.  If this is the case, it may work best to assign each a specific job or area of the room to clean. This might also mean one cleans at a time.
• Set small goals - If there really are toys absolutely everywhere, it can be an overwhelming task to clean it all up.  It may be helpful to start small and clean up the trains before snack and the legos after.
• Positive choices - Giving children choices would be saying "do you want to start with the blocks or balls?" or "Would you like to throw those in or dump truck them in the basket?"  When a child makes a choices they are that much closer to doing the behavior.  Here is a full blog post on how choices work in discipline.
• Challenges - Can child count all the blocks they put on the shelf?  Can child pick up more blocks than you?  Can child make neat stacks?  Can child put all the blocks away in two minutes?  Ready, go!
• Jobs - Jobs around clean up time might be the block supervisor, the doll organizer, or the art supply sorter.  Give a title and a brief job description.
• Read books about it - Children's story books include:

1.  Pigsty by Teague
2. Super, Completely and Totally the Messiest by Viorst
3. The Messiest Room on the Planet by Kulling