"What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?" -- Jean Jacques Rousseau

Today is World Kindness Day, a day that "encourages individuals to overlook boundaries, race and religion". The Day was introduced in 1998 by the World Kindness Coalition, a group of kindness NGOs from around the globe.

Kindness is an intrinsic trait in children, but it is the responsibility of parents and educators to nurture and encourage the inclination to be kind. The best way to do this is to act as a good role model--children learn to be kind and helpful by watching the adults in their lives. 

There are a lot of ways that adults can demonstrate kindness and helpfulness to children. An article in Parents Magazine Online lists some of the ways you can be a kindness role model for your children. A blog post from My Life And Kids provides a list of links of random acts of kindness that kids can do. 

These small acts of kindness are fun for children and they help demonstrate that being kind is not only the right thing to do, but it feels good too! Go out and perform a random act of kindness with your child today, and help make every day World Kindness Day! 

Tonight's Parent Advocate Meeting has been re-scheduled due to the possibility of low participation. The new date is TUESDAY DEC. 9TH at 6:30PM. 

Please consider getting involved. This is a great opportunity for parents to voice their opinion and get information on topics including:

• School policies
  
• School events and themes
• QRIS (Quality Rating Improvement Systems)
  
• Parent participation and volunteer opportunities

We hope that our Parent Advocate Meetings will help bridge the gap between our school and our families. We want to hear your voice! Please let us know at the front desk if you are interested in being a part of the Parent Advocate group and sign up to attend our first meeting next month. 

This Monday saw the end of another successful Book Fair here at Future Scholars! 

The decorations, created and displayed by our talented staff, transformed the Future Scholars Great Room into Sir Readalot's Castle--the royal kingdom of reading! Books for everyone from infants to adults were available as well as fun stationary, pens, and small toys. 

Through the All For Books loose change collection program, we raised $169.05, which was spent on books that will be donated to the pediatric unit at Virtua Hospital. That amount will also be matched and donated by Scholastic! A special shout out to Kindergarten for winning the All For Books challenge--their room raised more than $77 (almost 45% of the total amount raised!) and Room 6 won a prize basket of books and other Scholastic goodies. 

We are happy to be involved with the Scholastic Book Fair and the Scholastic Book Club. These events and monthly programs are great ways to get kids excited about reading and that is important to us here! 

With the online fair running until Nov. 18TH, there is still time to help us reach our goal of a 10% increase in last year's sales. Right now we are at 76% of our goal! Consider doing some holiday shopping at our online fair--kids love books! Shipping to Future Scholars is free and there is an even larger variety of books available.

Photos of our Book Fair are posted now. Check out the amazing decorations and the great selection of books we offered. Thank you to everyone who supported our fair this year by purchasing books and donating to All For Books.

It's Election Day today and here at Future Scholars our classrooms have been learning about what Election Day is and what it means to vote. Here are some of the fun things our older classrooms did today to celebrate our right to vote:

• Kindergarten learned how to use a ballot and voted on their favorite color skittle.
  
• Pre-K voted on their favorite ice cream.
• Pre-School made their own Voter Registration Card crafts and voted on which book they would read at Story Time.
  
• The Juniors have been voting on different issues all week...today they voted on their favorite candy and yesterday they voted on their favorite movie. 

Children are curious and love to learn. Here are some common questions about Election Day and voting that your children (especially older ones) may come home asking, along with ideas on how to phrase your response. All of these questions and answers were taken from the PBS article "The Race Is On!A Parent's Guide to Talking About the Presidential Election".

What is voting?
You can explain to preschoolers that voting is a way for a group to make a decision. Family members can cast votes for a favorite meal, favorite book or favorite weekend activity.

Who can vote?
School-age children are ready to learn that when this country began, the Founding Fathers wrote a constitution describing how we would govern ourselves. It said people should vote but didn't say who could vote. That was left to each state to decide, which created problems. In the past, people were denied the right to vote because of social class, gender or ethnic origin. Now after centuries of protest, four amendments to the Constitution and several new laws, all U.S. citizens, 18 years or older, are allowed to vote.

Why can't kids vote (in the real election)?
Kids who get caught up in election excitement may be disappointed to learn that they don't get a vote. Explain to them that in order to vote in this country, you have to meet citizenship, residency and age requirements, meaning you have to be at least 18. But remind kids that even if they can't vote in the presidential election, they can still vote in class, with their family or with a group of friends.

Why should people vote?
Raise a future voter by teaching children about the importance of making their voices heard. Tell them that despite the struggle to extend the vote to all American citizens over 18, only 64 percent of U.S. citizens age 18 and over voted in the 2004 presidential election. Explain that because a surprising number of elections are determined by small margins, it's important for all eligible voters to participate at the local and national level.

Can I come to the party?
You may need to teach young children that that a political party isn't the same as a birthday party -- even though they'll see lots of balloons, confetti and dancing if they watch a convention on TV. Show kids that political parties are groups of people with similar interests who join together to support candidates. School-age children have probably heard of the Democrats and Republicans. Introduce them to other parties, too, like the Green Party, the Libertarians and the Progressives. Remind them that voters can just be independents and not join a party at all.

Getting children involved: 
Invite young children to draw their own cartoon symbols for causes they believe in, whether they're helping animals, saving the earth or raising money for a children's charity.

Visit the original article. 

Halloween at Future Scholars started with our annual costume parade at 10:00AM. Families were invited to watch as all of our classrooms paraded around the building in their fabulous costumes....everything from characters like Elsa and Olaf and superheroes like Captain America to classic Halloween ensembles like ghosts and vampires! 

It was a chilly morning, so after the parade everyone quickly got inside, eager to start their classroom's party. Thanks to our generous parents, each room had enough goodies to adequately fill our students with lots of sugar :) Classrooms also had fun playing games like Pin The Nose on The Jack-O-Latern and reading spooky Halloween stories. 

We hope everyone had fun trick-or-treating this year and we can't wait to see all of the creative and adorable costumes at next year's Halloween Parade and Parties! 

Check out more photos of the Halloween festivities.