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

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.
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.
* *
*
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!
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.
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.
****************
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.
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.
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:
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.

