We are gearing up for
MMA Belt Tests and Promotion Ceremonies!
Dreamers, mark your calendars!
Belt Tests will be conducted on Tuesday, November 12th during regular class times.
Promotion Ceremonies will take place on Saturday, November 16th according to the following schedule:
Ages 4-6: 10:30-11:30 am
Ages 7-10: 12:00-12:45 pm
Ages 11-14: 12:45-1:30 pm
Please note:
Dream will be closed Wednesday, November 27-Friday, November 29, 2019. Enjoy the Thanksgiving break!
Other News and Updates
November Mini Camp spots still available!
School's out Thursday, November 7th and Friday, November 8th for the Teachers Convention. Sign up for both days or one day! Kids will learn martial arts and nature skills through adventure and play during our special Mini Camp.
Sign up here!
Our 2nd Annual Family Fun & Gratitude Ceremony is on Saturday, November 30th.
Students and their families are all invited on the mats to play and attend a very special ceremony revolving around gratitude. Please join us for this fun and cherished event.
Ceremony times are as follows:
Ages 4-6: 10:30-11:30 am
Ages 7-14: 11:30 am-12:30 pm
We want to extend a HUGE thank you to the families who contributed costumes and costume items for our Halloween Costume Drive! We brought our collected items to the Jersey Cares office in Livingston, where they distributed them to children in New Jersey in time for some Halloween fun and trick-or-treating!
Moral of the Month: Gratitude
We can only be said to be alive when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.
—Thornton Wilder
To be grateful is to choose to focus our attention and energy on what we appreciate. Gratitude is selfless; it instills a sense of interconnectedness and good will and is the catalyst for feelings of joy and reciprocity. A grateful heart also possesses healthy amounts of many other values, like humility, awareness, kindness and respect, for example. It is no wonder why Cicero deemed gratitude “not only the greatest of the virtues, but the parent of all others.”
Gratitude benefits our emotional, social and physical wellness. A study conducted out of the University of California, Davis, revealed that fostering gratitude can increase happiness, self-esteem and empathy levels, while other studies have shown that kids who practice grateful thinking have more positive attitudes toward school and family. Additionally, appreciating the contributions of our friends and family fosters stronger, more positive relationships.
Gratitude also highlights the fact that many of the things we own and the opportunities we have come from someone other than ourselves, leading us to understand how interdependent we all are, which may make us more inclined to treat others with respect. Gratitude has also been linked to healthier heart health and better sleep.
“Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.”
—Henri Frederic Amiel
Gratitude goes beyond good manners and there is a lot that parents can do to cultivate this foundational virtue within their children.
Gratitude jar: At the end of each week, each family member writes down one thing that they appreciated, and then place the note in a large jar. This gets them to stop and notice life’s daily gifts. After a year of commemorating these notes of gratitude, the family can get together, empty the jar and read all the things everyone was grateful for. This makes for nice discussions about what we think and feel about the things we receive.
Where did it come from: Explore together the origin of some object or amenity that might normally be taken for granted (like an apple, or air conditioning). Children may develop a new appreciation once they discover the number of places/people involved or the multitude of things that had to happen to bring these things to their lives.
Rose, thorn, bud: This activity involves looking back on the day and recounting something we appreciated (rose), something that went wrong or was unpleasant (thorn), and something that we look forward to (bud). This incorporates nicely into a bedtime routine and promotes bonding and memory recall.
The silver-lining mindset: Setbacks happen all the time but making a habit out of finding the good within the bad will show children that they have it better than they might imagine even when facing difficulties. So, if their game gets rained out, a parent can respond by noting that the family has a warm house to go to, or that maybe there will be a rainbow to spot afterward.
There are so many things to appreciate in our world and practicing gratitude regularly enhances our lives. We are extremely grateful for our dedicated students and our wonderful Dream community!