Stoneridge Children's Montesori School

Arrival

Thank you for arriving between 8:15 and 8:25 am!  Students who arrive after 8:30 will need to sign in (or be signed in by a parent) at Pat's window and take a late pass to class.

After-School Care Program

We are currently enrolling for the After-School Care program coordinated by Ellen Sears. Ellen is planning many activities and is very excited about spending afternoons with our Stoneridge students. Please let Pat know if and when you will need After-School Care (a form was mailed in August). After-School Care is available for CH-MS students until 5:30 Monday through Friday.

Re-Sale Boutique

On Saturday, November 7, Stoneridge will hold its first ever Re-Sale Boutique!  You can help by donating any of the following kids items: clothes, shoes and sporting equipment in excellent condition, or high quality toys, books and educational materials in excellent condition.  Please note that we can’t accept toys or games with small parts that are not suitable for children under 3 years old, or plastic toys.  We also need hanger donations, especially kids’ hangers.  More details on what we can and can’t accept will follow.

The boutique is a one-day event – November 7 – and is open to all Stoneridge families and to the public. Mark your calendar, tell your friends, and come get some great buys! This will surely be a great event!  

We will be accepting donations Wed 11/4 - Friday 11/6 from Stoneridge families only. We’ll need help organizing the donations, setting up, working the day of the event, and cleaning up afterwards.

If you want to help with organizing for the Stoneridge Re-Sale Boutique, please email tracychait@msn.com or staciegrasso@gmail.com.

Easy Ways to Support Stoneridge

This year, there are so many easy ways you can help raise funds for Stoneridge, by doing what you do normally: SHOP!   First, you can sign up at onecause.com (formerly schoolpop.com), and most online retailers will contribute a percentage of your purchase directly to Stoneridge.

It couldn’t be easier: once you’re signed up, just remember to login to www.onecause.com whenever you make an online purchase, and the contribution automatically makes it’s way to Stoneridge.  There are over 500 merchants who subscribe, so the majority of your online purchases will help.  Target, LandsEnd, Amazon, Zappos are just a few retailers, and there are so many, many more.  

Also, if you are a Shaw’s Rewards Card holder, just link your rewards card to Stoneridge, and each time you shop, Stoneridge will automatically receive 1% of your total purchase.  If you bring your rewards card in to school, leave the information at our sign up sheet in the lobby, and we can sign you up, or you can do it yourself at www.shaws.com/neighborhoodrewards.

Finally, so many products you purchase are part of the Boxtops for Education Program.  Hundreds of everyday products have the boxtops cutouts. Just clip from packages and leave them in our jar in the lobby.   If you have any questions, ideas, or want to help with fundraising, please email tracychait@msn.com or staciegrasso@gmail.com

Oceans Author Presenting on September 23

You are invited to hear Deborah Cramer, author of Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water, Our World on Wednesday, September 23, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. in the Mary Weld Pingree Center for the Performing Arts, Pingree School, 537 Highland Street, South Hamilton, MA. A book signing will follow. This event is the 2009 Eleanor M. Dorsey Memorial Lecture, sponsored by Pingree School.  

Free. Handicapped accessible. For more information, please call 978-468-4415 ext. 310.

Webinar for Parents on “Understanding and Coping with Separation Anxiety”

As a new school year begins, and children and parents go their separate ways, pangs of anxiety are common. The American Montessori Society will be offering a special Webinar (a live conference over the Internet) designed to help parents (and teachers) understand the process and provide coping mechanisms that will help ensure healthy separation experiences throughout one’s lifetime. There will also be time for questions and answers. The presenter will be Marie Conti, senior director of school accreditation and member programs. Marie has almost 30 years of experience working with Montessori children and their families, as both a teacher and administrator.

The Webinar will be presented twice: Wednesday, September 30, 10:30 AM–noon (ET) and Thursday, October 7, 7–8:30 PM (ET). Fees start at $25 per person (AMS members) and $150 per site (AMS-member schools, unlimited number of participants). For more details, and to register, click here.

Teachers and administrators: please share this news with parents in your community, and feel welcome to reproduce this article in your school newsletter.

Small Refrigerator Needed for Nurse's Office

We are in need of a small refrigerator for our nurse’s office to keep medicines cold and to store cold packs. If you or anyone you know is getting rid of a working dorm room-sized refrigerator, please consider donating it to Nurse Nancy. Contact Nancy Bixbee at nbixbee@stoneridgecms.org

Appreciation to class of 2009

For the wonderful gift of a digital projector. Students and Faculty have already been using it for presentations.  Thank you!

Toddler House News

By Pam Richardson and Paulette Dettorre

We hope you all had a wonderful summer and are ready to embark on a new adventure with your child.   Thank you for welcoming us into your homes for our home visits.   What a joy it is to spend time with the toddlers in their own environment.  We are excited about our group of toddlers and parents this year.

Thank you all for attending our potluck dinner and initial parent meeting. There will likely be other occasions during the year when parents can get together and come to know each other better -- how reassuring it is to know the parents of your children's friends!  Please continue collecting information about our Montessori program and school, sharing information with each other and making your questions known.  As we implement our new three-day program option in toddler house this year, our key words for the year will be flexibility and communication.  Welcome! Let’s make this a fabulous year!

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Welcome:  Please update your SCMS Family Directory and the Toddler House Class list to include new student, Luke and his parents Olivia and Charles.

Please note: The School does not publish family information on the internet. Please see Pat or your class parent for full names and contact information.

Carpooling

There are many reasons to carpool, including spending less time on the road, helping your child establish greater independence, and being kind to the earth. If any of these reasons appeals to you, then you are ready to find one or more carpool partners! How do I find a carpool partner? We recommend two ways. You can check out the Community Directory that was mailed to you in August. You’ll find a Zip Code Directory starting on page 85. However, we now have an even more useful way to find a carpool partner. We’ve created an interactive map (please see Pat for address) that shows where all school families are located. When you click on this link, you will see a map of the North Shore with all families’ homes shown. Click on a family name and you’ll see the location of their home. Click on a “circle” and you’ll see the name of the family that lives there. Note that this link will not be active in versions of the newsletter posted online, since information about our families – in this case, names and addresses – is never distributed outside the immediate school community. Happy carpooling!

Lisa Watkins Appointed Advancement Coordinator

We are pleased to announce that Lisa Watkins, parent of two Stoneridge students, has been appointed as Advancement Coordinator at Stoneridge.

This position was not part of the budget for the current year. Lisa spoke up during the summer, asking if she might offer her services in a staff role. After interviewing with Alan and members of the Board’s Advancement Committee, a staff position was created and offered to Lisa. She is a staff member in all ways except one – she is not salaried. We are very grateful for her offer to work at the School, and we know that having the Advancement Office staffed by Lisa this year will be an enormous asset to all of us! Her work hours are 8 am to 3 pm, Monday through Thursday. Thank you, Lisa!

Lisa brings extensive experience working in the banking industry in New York and London, most recently with JP Morgan and Barclays Capital. At both banks, she specialized in handling the human and technical aspects of organizational changes and technology implementation. She supervised groups as large as forty employees and also assisted the banks in their philanthropic efforts. Closer to home, Lisa has been active in fundraising for her church, where she chaired a recent capital campaign. Lisa has many other talents as well. Lisa sings with the Boston Pops and the Boston Symphony on special occasions through the year. Many families will remember her singing at the Benefit Auction last year.

You may have also noticed that we have changed the name of the office. Formerly called the Development Office, this administrative area is now our Advancement Office and involves multiple administrative staff. This change reflects some reorganization by the Board of its own work. Instead of a Development Committee, the Board now has a very active and engaged Advancement Committee chaired by Michèle Petryk. The Advancement Committee has responsibility for policy in the areas of fundraising; enrollment (including retention of current families and marketing to new families); contact with our alumni, past students, and their families; and public relations. Lisa’s work with fundraising, Val’s work in retention and marketing, and Camilla’s work with alumni and public relations all now are planned and coordinated under the aegis of the Board’s Advancement Committee.

Carousel of Time

By Alan Feldman
Head of School

 

And the seasons they go round and round

And the painted ponies go up and down

We’re captive on the carousel of time

We can’t return, we can only look behind

From where we came

And go round and round and round

In the circle game

-Joni Mitchell, “Circle Game”

My wife and I were invited to a friend’s home to sing folksongs over Labor Day weekend, and I found myself transported back many years as a group of about 40 people were singing songs from way-back-when. Among them, Joni Mitchell’s “Circle Game.” I listened to her records frequently some 35 years ago. (We still have these vinyl disks tucked in some closet in our home). The memory sent me scurrying to my computer the next morning, where I found the lyrics to this song as well as her poignant 1972 performance of this song at a Carnegie Hall concert.

The song is one of appreciation for the cycles of life of which we are all a part. “We can’t return, we can only look behind/From where we came” is a truth we all live with each day. It is more evident, and more and more poignant, too, as we grow older. This realization inspires appreciation of where we have been in our life’s journey…and equally, an appreciation of where we are today.

The “carousel of time” was more than evident this past week as we all returned to school. The eagerness of children was overwhelming – I heard many stories from parents of children waking up well before dawn in anticipation of their new year. Their anticipation was well rewarded. Children clearly feel something special being back with their teachers and peers and in the familiar routines of school. They were all still smiling at the end of each day.

I’m certain I was not alone this past week observing just how Stoneridge families re-start the school year. On the terrace in front of the school, a group of long-time parents set up homemade food at the Welcoming Coffees that generated an enthusiastic clutch of people each morning. Many parents new to the School found themselves drawn into this special parent community; I especially enjoyed the new parents’ stories of how they learned about Stoneridge for their family.

Inside each classroom, students who hadn’t seen each other all summer picked up where they left off. And just as important, returning students welcomed the new students. The UE class, for example,  has six new students joining 21 returning students, and the returning students have the responsibility to welcome their newly arrived peers. I observed the class one day during outdoor lunch and recess and was much impressed as new students were warmly invited to join lunch groups or games of Four Square.

School re-opening is truly a ritual. At Stoneridge, it is a ritual that underlines the School’s basic value of community. The “circle game” so visible at Stoneridge this past week is one of children and parents reconnecting and rebuilding the community that is so crucial to our School’s mission.

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On a more personal note, Carol and I had the pleasure of our daughter Becca’s two-part wedding this summer, beginning in Israel in June and ending in the Berkshires in August. Truly an occasion for Carol and me to feel the “painted ponies go up and down,” as we remembered a similar time in our own lives. What a special pleasure for us to see our daughter and her husband Alon enjoying this time in their lives! If any of you like to see the photos of other family’s weddings, I’ve left some of the wedding photos right outside my office door – glad to share them!

Upper Elementary

Launching the New Year
By Rick Boomer

The doors to the foyer of the Upper Elementary suite have been re-hung, and, inside the UE suite, the team of Cathy Palmisano, Rick Boomer, and Victor Young has been busily preparing for yet another exhilarating journey with our 27 students.  We have been working on designing our use of space. One classroom will be used for most small-group lessons and the morning work cycle. The other will be utilized for large-group lessons and our daily opening and closing circles. The furniture and materials are being rearranged accordingly.

Much of the first few weeks will be spent with learning assessments, review of some of last year’s concepts, and participating in community-building games and activities. Included in the community building is a trip to Project Adventure on Friday, September 11 where we will challenge ourselves and support each other’s choices, courage, and growth. Later that same day, Upper Elementary will gather back at school for a pizza dinner. The sixth years will then lead the class in creating a class code of conduct and choosing yearly jobs. 

An important feature of the Upper Elementary program will again be science learning. As you may be able to guess from the students’ summer assignment at the beach, we will begin the year with a study of the ocean and its processes. Deborah Cramer, author of Smithsonian Ocean: Our Water Our World, recently met with the faculty to inspire lesson plans and various topics of study. We continue to brainstorm about projects, fieldtrips, and experiments that will support and enliven this initial area of focus.  We plan to hone our skills of observation and inquiry and use these skills throughout the year. The Upper Elementary students will also be studying geology and chemistry, two closely related science topics.

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Welcome:  Please update your SCMS Family Directory and the Upper Elementary Class list to include new student, Sean and his parents Richard and Lorraine.

Please note: The School does not publish family information on the internet. Please see Pat or your class parent for full names and contact information.

We’re looking forward to seeing everyone soon.

The Life of an Artist

By Cameron Sesto
I’m so looking forward to another year of exciting art possibilities. We will be coming up with many ideas around the theme of the Ocean. One of the gifts of living in this part of the country is the opportunity to observe, listen and learn the language of the sea. One project I have in mind will need a couple of tomato cages. If anyone has one or two to spare after the harvest, I would appreciate being able to use them as armatures.

In my own life as an artist, I enter my work each year in two very exciting local art events—one for sculpture, one for paintings. This year, they both are being held in September. If you like walking though a beautiful park featuring 19th century gardens, towering pines and rolling hills overlooking the Parker River, the “Outdoor Sculpture at Maudslay State Park” in Newburyport is a wonderful event for the whole family. Bring a picnic lunch and enjoy about 40 interesting sculptures. There is a booklet published with pictures and descriptions of each artists work. There is a $2.00 parking fee, but the booklet and sculpture event is free.  The show opens September 13 with a reception and tour with the artists on September 19 and continues until October 5th.

The second event is Chameleon’s Art Salon, taking place October 1-4 this year. If you are interested, please see me for details.

Library News

By Martha Morgan

This summer we were able to create, thanks to the wonderful assistance of the Northeast Regional Library System (of which Stoneridge is now a member), a Stoneridge library blog:

Please check out this “work in progress” – our blog.

This blog will serve as a resource of website links as well as a way for students and faculty (and parents!) to discuss literature and ideas.  If you have any questions or comments feel free to email me.

Also, again this year we are looking forward to new donations of Birthday Books (more on this next month or again feel free to email) and as a last reminder if you have any overdue library books from last year, please return them as soon as possible (no questions asked!).

Looking forward to a wonderful year of reading and discovery!