1-22-03--Welcome back. Its a short week this week, so there will not be extra classroom spelling words. We should be finishing The Witches this week as well, so there should be a movie event soon. Today's topic is achievement.

1-13-03--Hello, and apologies for the long wait between updates. All our extra time is being used up by scraping the ice off of our car windows! Today we introduced spelling dictionaries into the classroom. Whenever a student misspells a word, they write it in their dictionary. Then when they encounter the word again in their writing, they will be able to go to their dictionary and look up the correct spelling of the word. We have also started weekly conferences with our students. Each week we will go over their individual work plans and set a course of action for the next week. The conferences are taking us one step closer to getting ready to implement the school's Individual Learning Plans. Right now, conferencing is a work-in-progress, but Kourtney and Peter are constantly assessing the process and tweaking it towards perfection. This week we started with the second and third years, and we will start the first years next week. Finally, because of the weather, many of our students have been coming in from recess with wet socks and shoes. We would like to request that children be sent to school with either slippers or a warm change of socks or both, so that we don't have to have any complaints of cold feet. Thanks! Today's topic was honesty and for snack we had a pretzel and animal cracker mix and a cup of juice. We also celebrated Madison P.s birthday today!

1-6-03--Another school week has begun. Thanks to Ron Knowlton for substituting while Peter was in NJ for Gretchen's Grandmother's funeral. For those of you who are interested in a little trivia, did you know that Gretchen's Grandmother was a survivor of the Andrea Doria? Anyway, back to the classroom. Today's topic is "kindness". The new spelling lists should have come home today. On Friday the Weekend Family Homework Jar was introduced. Each Friday every student will draw a slip of paper that has a family-themed task to complete over the weekend. Please make sure that your children are getting their homework done! Today for snack we had blueberry muffins and juice.

1-2-03--We had a snowy and icy start to our second half with the two hour delay this morning, but we managed to make it to school eventually. Today we introduced the thought of the day. Every day there will be a topic on the white board for our class to look at, think about and discuss. Today's topic was "Respect for our environment". Reading buddies with Sonia's class took up our afternoon, along with a 90 second share, where each student had 90 seconds to share what they did over the break. Even Peter and Kourtney got to speak! Because of the delay, there was no snack today.

1-1-03--Happy New Year everybody, and welcome back! Kourtney and Peter spent the break resting, reflecting and planning, and are ready to go for the second half of the year. We hope all of you are too! Thanks for all the wonderful gifts to the classroom from everyone. We should have enough pencils to last us into 2004! Be prepared, new spelling lists will be going out on Monday. There will be a change in the spelling. We will still have seperate lists, but each week there will be three classroom words for everybody to learn. The classroom words will be related to the work that we are doing in the classroom. There are going to be more changes going on in our classroom, so keep on checking the website to find out what's going on!

12-18-02--Yesterday we talked about Diwali, which we are going to present during the E1 Festival of Lights on Friday. Diwali is a Hindu celebration, and translates to "River of Lights". Tomorrow is our classroom holiday celebration. Yesterday for snack we had pretzel mix and orange juice.

12-17-02--We had a wonderful field trip to Anna Jacques yesterday. We learned about the lab, x-rays, and the history of the hospital, as well as many other things. There was also a cute newborn baby that we all had a chance to wave at and everyone got to wear scrubs. In the afternoon we finished our Giving Tree. Feel free to come in and see if there is anything there that you can contribute to the classroom! One quick correction from yesterday's note home: the school's winter celebration on Thursday night is at 5:30, not 6:30. We hope to see you there!

12-16-02--Today we go on our field trip to Anna Jacques Hospital. We are going to learn about how a hospital works. Today is also Peter's Dad's birthday. Happy Birthday Dad! Thursday the 19th will be our classroom holiday party. Friday morning the E1s are having a Festival of Lights assembly. And of course, Friday is our last day of school for the year 2002. Finally, as a holiday present from Kourtney and Peter to all our students, there will be no spelling this week. Happy Holidays!

12-10-02--There are more pictures on the site! Check out our gallery page here! Today in class we talked about giving, and what it means. We will be creating a classroom giving tree of classroom needs, similar to last year. We will have more details in the coming days. Permission slips for the field trip to Anna Jacques went home today. We need them back by Friday. Today we had music, and goldfish for snack.

12-9-02--It's Monday and Kourtney is back. She missed a wonderful performance of "The Sword and the Stone: The Untold Story" on Friday night. Kudos to all our classmates who helped put on a wonderful play with the drama club. Last week we also spent some time learning about Chanukah. Thanks to Jake and Zach and Zach's mom for the treats and the dreidels! Thanks also to all of you who donated gift wrap to the Women's Crisis Center. Next week we will be taking a trip to Anna Jacques Hospital, for which permission slips will be coming home soon.

12-3-02--Welcome back from Thanksgiving break! I hope everyone had a delicious holiday. Only three weeks until the Winter holiday break! Don't forget that we are collecting wrapping paper for the Women's Crisis Center. Please bring in wrapping paper by the end of the week.

11-26-02--Today is the E1 Thanksgiving Feast. We will meet in the activity room at 11:30 to give thanks, sing songs, and eat yummy treats. Our class has made pumpkin pies for the occasion. Today is the last day of school before the Thanksgiving break. Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

11-22-02--We don't know about everyone else, but we are still full from yesterday's pot luck dinner. Thanks to everyone who provided all the yummy treats and helped make the dinner a big success. Today we have spelling tests. Yesterday we had chips and salsa and grape juice for snack. Don't forget that next week is a short week because of the Thanksgiving break!

11-20-02--Thank you to all the parent chaparones who helped make yesterday's field trip to the Children's Museum a great success. Everyone was still talking about the trip this morning. Who knew learning could be so fun! Yesterday was also the first day for our new friend Alexis. Welcome to our community, we hope you feel at home with us! Don't forget that tomorrow is our Thanksgiving Potluck Dinner at 6:30. Click here for more information.The school's book fair also starts tomorrow, come by the Library and browse. Feel free to look at our wish list of books to contribute to the classroom! Today for snack we had muffins and fruit juice.

11-18-02--Hello and welcome to another busy week here in our classroom at River Valley. Tomorrow we have our field trip to the Boston Children's Museum. Don't forget to get those permission slips in! Also, don't forget that Thursday night, the 21st, we have our classroom potluck dinner. You can get more information about that here. Friday we saw a great program on raptors and Native Americans. It was very informative and involved live birds. Friday for snack we had bagels with cream cheese and cupcakes, because it was Noah's Candle Walk. Happy Birthday, Noah!

1-14-02--Today we have Literary Circles. Tomorrow we have a special program at 1:00, which means we can't have Parent Reading Buddies. We are going to the Children's Museum with Germaine's class, look for a permission slip to come home today. We also have our classroom potluck on the 21st. Yum, yum! Yesterday we had fruit salad and apple juice for snack, and today we have banana bread.

11-6-02--A rainy Wednesday, or Wodensdaeg as we learned today, which meant indoor gym and recess. But we managed to make it through the day with only a touch of cabin fever. We finished up spelling tests (except for a few individuals) and took a long lunch. Don't forget that not only is dismissal at 11:30 tomorrow, but also that Parent/Teacher conferences begin. Other news of unforgettable importance: Literary Circles are still on for tomorrow and Friday we will be planting more shrubs in the playground at 10:30 a.m. We had juice and blueberry muffin cake for snack today. Don't forget to sign up for home visits!

11-5-02--Today we took spelling tests, learned Spanish and continued our study of the continents. We also have a picture from Mystery History on our gallery page, check it out here. Today for snack we had a popcorn and cheezit mix with some fruit drink.

11-4-02--Today it was back to work as normal, after Friday's excitement. Not only was there a Birthday surprise party for Kourtney, but Kristin also appeared to surprise the class. Even with all the surprises, we managed to have a successful D.E.A.R. day. The classroom was turned into a landscape of Reading Castles, and much fun was had by all. One casualty of all the excitement were spelling tests. They have been postponed to this week, and new spelling lists will be available on the 12th. Parent/Teacher conferences are scheduled for Thursday and Friday afternoons, so if there are any parents out there who haven't signed up, please do so. Today for snack we had popcorn and lemonade.

11-1-02--Happy November everyone! Today is our first Drop Everything And Read day. Feel free to grab your copy of War and Peace and come and join us today! We've had a busy week with Pumpkin Madness, Mystery History, our field trip to Cider Hill, our first literary circles and our normal school schedule. But we made it through swimmingly! Which our new fish will do as soon as we get them in our tank. Next week we have parent conferences on Thursday and Friday. If you haven't signed up, please do so. The sign-up sheets are right by the door. Thank yous must be sent to all the parents who drove to Cider Hill, volunteered to drive to Cider Hill, and those parents who monitored lunch on Wednesday. Our classroom is made possible by parents like you. Yesterday for snack we had tortilla chips, salsa and juice.

10-28-02--Today there was a surprise waiting for our class when they stepped into their classroom today. The room had been redecorated and rearranged! K & P were the busy beavers over the weekend, inspired, no doubt, by a marathon watching of Trading Spaces. We are still open to suggestions and donations so let us know if you have any ideas. Don't forget that tomorrow is our trip to Cider Hill. Dress appropriately as we don't want to get straw in our Sunday's Bests. Tomorrow night is the E1 parent/student night. There will be childcare for siblings available. Come and find out if your child does more than eat snack all day:)! Today we also sent home literature circle books and assignments. Our first meeting will be Thursday. We have posted the note that we sent home today here.Today for snack we had an assorted cracker plate.

10-25-02--Here we are at the end of another week. We are getting ready for the E1 parent/student night on Tuesday, as well as our trip to Cider Hill. A memo went home yesterday about the trip, pumpkins, and Mystery History. We can't wait to see who everyone will choose to be. All the books are in for literary circles and we had everyone give their choices for which group they want to be in. We can't guarantee everyone will get their first choice, but we can guarantee that every book is good. We have also posted our sign-ups for parent/teacher conferences on the seventh and eighth of November. Today for snack we had fun-shaped cheese and crackers and goldfish served with juice.

10-23-02--What an excellent Spanish Class we had yesterday. Everybody participated and everybody learned. The Spanish teacher was very impressed. Get ready to spend some time today working on your presentation for the E1 parent/student night scheduled for October 29th. Parents, information will come home for that very soon, as will the Cider Hill Farms permission slip. That trip is only a week away! We have started getting people's pumpkins into the classroom, let's hope there are more to come. Today for snack we had muffins and goldfish and juice.

10-22-02--Yesterday we had art and our first set of books for literary circles arrived! We also had a yummy cranberry bread for snack.

10-19-02--Yesterday our work period seemed to be much "quieter" thanks in large part to our new "quiet cards" and of course the hard work your children were all busily doing. Yesterday we also had our second round of Spelling. As some of you may remember from last year, in an effort to make Spelling more meaningful across our curriculum, as homework we are asking all students to look at their reviewed Spelling quiz and rewrite misspelled word in their best handwriting(for our 2nd and 3rd years that is cursive). Students should then include these words in a complete sentence.
We have been spending some time this week getting ready for our E1 October 29 Parent Night. This will be a night that serves to showcase all of your childrens' hard work on Montessori materials. Parents will have the opportunity to be the student as your children offer lessons on various materials. Stay tuned for further details.
Next week we will begin a measurement study that we will be tying into the Halloween holiday. We will be working on skills such as estimating, measurement, graph making and culminating in a group cooking activity. Our vehicle for this study will be the ever popular Fall symbol of the pumpkin. In order to make this lesson most engaging for your children, we are asking parents to please supply your child with a pumpkin small enough for them to manage but larger than a gord. Students may begin bringing in their pumpkins as soon as Monday.
On a final note, Peter and I are currently working on improving the asthetics in our classroom. We are on a quest for things like greenery and plants to breathe some life into our room. Any parent who may have items at home that they feel may make our room more inviting, please let us know. We are also looking for a parent who may have strong organizational skills, looking to fullfill some volunteer hours to reorganize our in class library. Anyone interested should feel free to stop in or let a PAL know. Have a safe and restful weekend. Thorton (my dog) and I are now off to chase some leaves on this most blustery day! See you Monday! ~Kourtney

10-17-02 -- Today we started to work on keeping our work period quiet, so that our students can better concentrate on our work. We introduced quiet cards and our first day with the new system seemed to go o.k. We have ordered our books for literary circles. When we recieve them all, literary circles will begin. Keep your fingers crossed that Amazon delivers them in a timely manner! Today for snack we had cheese and crackers.

10-15-02 -- Well, the long weekend is over, and we're back from training. Peter is all ready to teach the snake game to as many people as he can, and Kourtney is all about cubing. Thanks to our substitutes for covering our classes and thanks to our classmates for working so well while we were gone. Today for snack we had organic chips, bean dip and juice. We have a special musical assembly tomorrow at 1 entitled "Life at Sea: A Voyage in Song". Don't forget we are on our second week of spelling! Check our our gallery page to see some pictures of our class at work.

10-8-02 -- Spelling lists for October should have come home last night. If not, let us know and we will send out new ones to you. The first spelling quiz will be on Friday. We would like to see the spelling list come to school written in our best penmanship. If cursive is a problem, we will send home cursive booklets to help out. We will be doing more with spelling, including definitions and sentences, but do to the short week, the quiz and the handwritten list is all that we are requiring by Friday. Don't forget that Friday is a half day. Also, Peter and Kourtney will be out for their October training seminars on both Thursday and Friday. Parents, don't worry, there will be substitutes with complete lesson plans. Sorry kids! We also posted on the archive page our first classroom attempt at Words That We Do Not Call Rules, and our classroom consequences. Please look them over and discuss them as a family. If you have any suggestions, feel free to email us. Keep in mind that this document is a work in progress, that we will be refining throughout the year. Don't forget about Movie Night, part 2, tonight at 6. Anyone interested in attending the school's Board of Trustee's meeting afterword is more than welcome to do so! Yesterday for snack we had popcorn and ice tea. We also held a birthday candle walk for Galaxie and made some great clay pieces in art.

10-7-02 -- Happy Birthday, Galaxie! Apologies to all for the delay in updating our site. Movie Night and other matters seem to have taken up all our update time. But don't worry we are back. Just in time for Movie Night, part 2. We will finish up with the Wizard of Oz tomorrow, Tuesday the 8th, at 6:00 p.m. Other than the date, everything else remains the same. The movie should be over by 7:30. We also have scheduled a trip to Cider Hill Farms for the morning of October 29th. Practice up on those apple picking skills. On an educational front, spelling lists will be coming home today. Quizzes will be on Friday. Literary circles will be starting soon, as we have finalized our list of books. Snack on Friday was a goldfish and pretzel mix. Thanks to Isabelle's dad for photos. Its true, we have photos of the classroom in action, and we will post them as soon as possible. Keep on checking the site!

10-1-02 -- Hello, and welcome to a nice 80 degree October day. Today we did the second experiment of the creation story, involving ice, water and air. The second years and the first years have now taken their spelling assesments, and we will be assessing the third years tomorrow. Once that is done, we will be sending home spelling words for everyone to enjoy. Don't forget Dinner and a Movie tomorrow night in our room at 6. We sent a flyer home (believe it or not, not everybody is checking out the site everyday!) and if you have more questions, either email us or ask us questions tomorrow. It is okay for children to bring pillows to make themselves comfortable, we just ask that siblings stay home for this one as we are worried about space considerations in our room. There will be a follow-up movie night next Tuesday, October 8th at 6 p.m. to finish the Movie. Please mark your calendars! We enjoyed yesterday's snack so much, we had it again today too. Finally, one of our parents has a sculpture being exhibited in the Upper Mill Yard in Amesbury through 11/25. Please take the time to visit it. For a preview,click here. If anyone else has anything they would like to share on our site, let us know!

9-30-02 -- Terra Nova's are a distant memory. And so is the yummy Apple Crisp we made on Friday for our class and the other E1s. It was a good way to end a long week. Today everybody got right back into the swing of things and worked on their math and language arts before moving on to other works. This afternoon we had art and we had a cookie, pretzel and cracker snack mix with juice for snack. Dinner and a Movie is still on for Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. Don't forget!

9-27-02 -- Welcome to another end of the week. We are planning our first Dinner and a Movie night for next Wednesday night. Mark it on your calendars. We will be sending information home about it. Today is the last day of Terra Novas and I think everybody is happy to see the end of them.

9-26-02 -- Well. Congratulations to the third years. They finished up their Terra Novas today, one day early! Today we worked on our writing and had cheese and crackers for snack.

9-25-02 -- Today was the last day of testing for the first years. Second and third years have two more days to go, although the tests on Friday will probably be the shortest. We had gym in the cul-de-sac today, and at Recess Kurt finally lost his tooth! We had watermelon balls and apple juice for snack today.

9-24-02 -- Today was the first day of the Terra Nova tests. Everyone managed to sit through the morning of tests. We also discussed classroom behavior and consequences today. We had Triscuts for snack.

9-23-02 -- Well, its a late update today, as we wanted to be sure we had the latest Terra Nova test info for you. Unfortunately we didn't get that until the end of the school day. But here is the latest information. On Friday, as you know, we prepared for the tests by taking the practice tests. The real tests start tomorrow, the 24th. First years will have two days of testing, and the second and the third years will have four days. The tests will be given in the morning, starting at 9:00. There won't be any testing in the afternoon. If your child is absent, there will be a make up date. We recommend that all you test takers should get to bed early and be well rested. If you have any questions, let us know! Thanks to Sisi's mom, Kurt's mom, and Galaxie's aunt for coming in to read on Friday. A good time was had by all, especially since snack on Friday was grape juice, bagels, and tortilla roll-ups!

9-20-02 -- Parent Reading Buddies starts today at 1:15. Yesterday we had a wonderful creation play done by some of our friends. It was called the Hopi Creation Myth play. Everyone did a great job. Dale and Ann and some other very important guests came to enjoy it as well. We also had a friend from E2 come to lunch with us. Perhaps our middle school lunch guest will visit us today. Yesterday for snack we had bananas, juice and yogurt. I also forgot to mention that on Wednesday we had our first group of students weed the playground swale with a group of middle schoolers. It was fun to get our hands dirty!

9-19-02 -- Today we might have a middle school guest for lunch. How exciting! Tomorrow we will start Parent Reading Buddies. If a parent is interested come in at 1:15 and we will get you down on the floor and reading. Yesterday for snack we had graham crackers and cantaloupe.

9-18-02 -- Today we have gym. Some of us are going to have the opportunity to work on the playground swale today. Won't that be fun! Yesterday for snack it was crackers, apple juice and string cheese. Yummy!

9-17-02 -- don't forget that Terra Nova testing is next week. We will let you know what day, later this week. Yesterday for snack we had carrot sticks, dip, pretzels and apple juice.

9-16-02 -- We have a new friend joining us today. I am sure that everyone will go out of their way to welcome her. We also have added the PALS page to the site. On Friday, we had popcorn for snack.

9-13-02 -- Thank you to all the parents who came to parents' night last night. We had a great time getting to know you and telling you about our classroom. We hope to see you in our classroom throughout the year! Yesterday for snack we had cheesesticks and crackers.

9-12-02 -- We had a wonderful time doing the candle walk for Kurt yesterday. It was the loudest sing-a-long that our class has ever had! The question is, of course, can we do better? The flag ceremony was also something to remember. Come by and see the flag, the flag pole and the rocks that each class decorated. Don't forget that tonight at 7 p.m. is the E1 Parents' night. We look forward to seeing you!

9-11-02 -- Today we celebrate our friend Kurt's birthday. Happy Birthday Kurt! The school is officially raising the flag on the new flagpole today at 9 a.m. Don't worry, the ceremony won't intefere with snack. Yesterday's snack was carrot sticks and a Cheez-it and Goldfish mix. Yum! Don't forget the E1 parents' night tomorrow!

9-10-02 -- Today there are some big changes on the website. We added the all important snack page! You can go to the snack page and find out that yesterday we had popcorn and oranges for snack. Yesterday we also sent a letter home in your child's blue folder. If you didn't get it, you can access it here or from our archives page. Finally, we would like to get everybody's emails, so that we can send out group reminders electronically. Please email us with your email addresses so we can get that process started. Thanks!

9-9-02 -- We hope everybody had a good weekend! Its going to be a busy week here in our classroom. We start our creation unit today and art starts as well. Don't forget about the E1 Parent Night this Thursday at 7:00. We are also looking for parent reading buddies to come in on Tuesday and Friday afternoons. Please contact us if you would like to volunteer. Friday's snack was carrot sticks and dip and string cheese!

9-6-02 -- We have made it through the first week, and what a fun week it has been. We are looking forward to having even more fun next week. There is a E1 Parent orientation night scheduled for next Thursday, the 12th at 7:00 P.M. As always, when we know more, we will tell you more. Yesterday's snack was Turkey and Cheese Rollups and Bananas. We also heard from Kristin. She has a new nephew!

9-5-02 -- Attention new parents! Don't forget the New Parent's Tea today at 8:30! Yesterday we sent out the a letter from our PALS and the Snack List. Check your child's blue folder to see which week you are responsible for. It will be posted here soon. Yesterday for snack we had chips and salsa.

9-4-02 -- Well what a fun first day we had. We met all our new friends, explored our school and classroom, read books, worked in our favorite subject areas, had recess and started thinking about how we can respect ourselves and our environment better. We also had goldfish and apple juice for snack. Aaaand, we got an e-mail from Kristin, who we think is in Vermont right now. Today will be even more fun, although I don't think Peter will be wearing his orange shirt.

9-3-02 -- Today is the first day of school! Welcome back everybody!

9-2-02 -- Wow. One last day of fun. Then its back into the classroom of work, work, work. So you better have fun today. Oh wait. It's 6:00 P.M., which means you better have had fun, because the day is almost over. Sleep well tonight, friends, because tomorrow will be an exciting first day of school. There were pretzels and more Swedish Fish for snack today.

8-30-02 -- Kourtney is in New Hampshire today, so Peter brought Simon in to keep him company. We enjoyed meeting a bunch of new and old friends yesterday, and we are excited for the start of the new year. We also noticed a typo on the welcome letter. Our correct e-mail address is [email protected].Thanks to our new friend Jake, we have Swedish Fish to munch on today.

8-29-02 -- Yeah! Today was the last day of meetings! Terri provided yummy Cheese-its as a snack, and "T Dog" continues to make himself at home. We are going to have visits from some of our friends this rainy afternoon. Unfortunately, the BBQ at the Beach was cancelled because of the weather.

8-28-02 -- Kourtney and Peter spent this morning in meetings and went shopping over lunch for supplies. We met some new friends today and saw some old ones. We had lots of help organizing our room. "T Dog" was in today making friends wherever he went. He made a friend in Daniel, a superb dog walker. There was no snack today.

8-27-02 -- Kourtney and Peter are busy setting up the room. Its going to look marvelous. But now, its just messy. But don't worry. It will be ready for Tuesday. Kourtney and Peter also get to sit in meetings all morning this week. Fun! Kourtney is having swedish fish for lunch, even though its really a snack.

8-21-02 -- Well the site is up and running, but it sure could use some cleaning up. There is no snack today, but Peter's mom is coming to take him out to dinner.

8-19-02 -- Progress has been made on the class web page. But Peter hasn't really tested it on-line. But he will, in time. Don't worry. There isn't any snack today.