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Greetings!
"That was a disaster!"
I heard a third grader exclaim this after the first full-audience performance of their class play,
The Child of the Nile, this past Monday. I should explain that this play was originally written with 20+ parts for a class of 30+ students. Our fierce third grade is comprised of just eight girls (my daughter is one of them). Their teacher, Ms. Dagobert--who expects, and gets, a great deal from her students--made the decision for the class to perform the play as written. No roles were cut or combined!
As Ms. Dagobert describes in the classroom updates below, as soon as the students first read the play (which tells the story of Moses) they "loved it and made it their own." As a parent, I was aware of an initial nervousness on the part of my child, who was daunted by the volume of lines they would need to learn. I was also aware that within a week of practice she was already easily reciting lines at home while explaining this or that funny or tragic part of the play. I remained unconcerned, confident that they would "get it." What I hadn't thought through was the stage management such a production might require: the costume changes, the set changes, the entrances and exits! This would be complicated.
Their first full-audience performance was for nearly the entire school. Ms. Dagobert asked her third graders if they would like her help backstage. They declined. They could manage it themselves. And manage it they did. It was a little bumpy. Some of the scene and costume changes were a little... long. (Our impressive and supportive audience, even the kindergarten students, watched and waited patiently.) There were things that went smoothly, and things that did not. One student battled stage fright serious enough to send most of us offstage for good, but which she overcame, returning onstage to perform the rest of her many parts admirably. Watching this performance I was rooting for them and worried for them the whole time. And then it was over. Not exactly a disaster, but you left thinking "They tried really hard..." more than "What a great play!"
That evening they had another performance, this time in front of an audience comprised mostly of their parents. Every performer shone. They were confident. The costume and scene changes were downright brisk. The performers (cum stage crew) supported and nudged each other along when needed. (Just before this evening performance they gathered together backstage and told the stage-frightened student that if she needed to leave the stage or skip any of her lines at any point, she could. She didn't. And you never would have known she had ever suffered from nerves.) The perseverance, hard work, and genuine improvement shown from one performance to the next was extraordinary.
People viewing a Waldorf school from the outside often miss the point of what goes on here, noting only, "Isn't that the place where they make pretty watercolor paintings and play outside a lot?" Yes, it is that place. But really it's the place where students learn to work hard, overcome discomfort, work together and support each other.
"I feel very accomplished."
I heard a third grader exclaim this after the second full-audience performance of their class play.
Communications and Outreach Director
*Child of the Nile was written by David Blair, who was the beloved class teacher of our beloved Class of 2018 teacher, Ms. Remensperger. Ms. Remensperger performed this play when SHE was in 3rd grade.
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Kindermorning
Saturday, May 6, 9-11:30 AM
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Windows into Waldorf
Wednesday, May 17, 8:30-10:30 AM
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May Fair has been postponed to...
Tuesday, May 9
12:00 PM: Early Childhood parents meet at the Early Childhood campus to decorate May crowns. Please send flowers in with your children in the morning.
12:35 PM: Early Childhood families cross the street to join the Grades families for the all-school picnic lunch. Bring blankets and/or lawn chairs. The Class of 2018 will host a Sweet & Savory lunch/bake sale.
1:30-2:45 PM: Maypole, Morris and Sword Dances (the program will begin promptly at 1:30)
This week only: Pizza Tuesday will move to Friday.
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Parking is available in the following locations:
- Taunton Hill parking lot
- Early Childhood horseshoe
- South Campus (Grade School) parking lot
- Dodgingtown Firehouse (front and rear lots)
- Behind the Dodgingtown Deli
Our neighbors kindly ask the following:
- In the rear Firehouse lot, do not park in the spaces against the Firehouse or blocking the Firehouse bay doors. Do not park in any location that blocks in the parking spaces against the Firehouse.
- Do not park in the lot in the front of the Dodgingtown Deli, liquor store, etc...
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Community Sing-Along
Friday, May 19, 3:15 PM
Grade School Campus
Music teacher Danielle O'Neil will lead us in song. (No experience necessary!) Following the singing we will share a finger food potluck. Please bring your own plates, utensils, and beverages. Please join us for what we hope will become a semi-regular gathering.
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8th Grade Shakespeare Play
Thursday, May 25, 7 PM
Friday, May 26, 7 PM
Lower Level, Compass Hall
The Class of 2017 presents William Shakespeare's
Twelfth Night, directed by the fabulous Benedicta Bertau. Don't miss this, their final class play!
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Spring Concert
Thursday, June 1, 6:30 PM
Newtown Middle School, Queen St.
Performances from 4th-5th grade music and Strings classes as well as the 6th-8th Grade Chorus and Orchestra. Come see and hear the great progress all of our 4th through 8th graders have made this year!
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German and Spanish Student Work Presentation
Wednesday, June 7, 8:30-9:30 AM
Lower Level, Compass Hall
It is our pleasure to invite you to a presentation of student work. Grades 1-8 will present a sampling of the work they have been doing in German and Spanish classes over the past school year.
This presentation is open to parents, family, and friends. We hope to see you there! Please contact Laura Ghedina and Marcela Perez with any questions.
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Last Day of School
Friday, June 9
Early Dismissal, No Aftercare, No Afternoon Buses
11 AM
: Crossing the Bridge Ceremony
North (Early Childhood) Campus
Early Childhood parents and extended families of graduating kindergarten students are invited. Parents of graduating students will meet at 9:45 AM to decorate the play yard. The ceremony will begin promptly at 11 AM. Everyone is encouraged to cross the street to the all-school picnic following the ceremony!
12:35 PM: All-School Picnic
South (Grades) Campus
Sweet & Savory Bake Sale provided by the Class of 2018
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Graduation
Saturday, June 10, 10 AM
South Campus
Graduation is not simply a distribution of diplomas, it is our graduating class's final assembly performance. Please join us to witness the culmination of their years at HVWS, and to wish them well on their new adventures!
Painting by Lily Blyn
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St. John's Day Festival
Friday, June 23, 5 PM
South Campus
Join us to celebrate summer with a (BYO) picnic dinner and potluck dessert, an outdoor theatrical production, bonfire, singing, and relaxation! We last celebrated this festival in 2015 at the close of our 25th year and were so pleased with how many alumni families joined us. Current, former, and alumni families are all invited and we hope to see you for this lovely, summery celebration.
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Hot Lunch Update: Burritos!
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As part of their class trip fundraising efforts, the Class of 2018 will be delivering delicious, hot burritos on Wednesdays starting May 17. (We plan to continue Burrito Wednesdays next year as well.)
For $20 ($5/week for 4 weeks) your child will enjoy either a vegetarian or chicken burrito and a side of organic corn chips.
- The vegetarian burrito is a yummy combination of roasted peppers, eggplant, zucchini, and Monterey Jack cheese.
- The chicken burrito contains shredded white meat chicken, beans, rice, and Monterey Jack cheese.
Orders are due on Monday, May 15. Place your order online.
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Spring Cleaning? Donate your gently used clothes, household items, toys, books, and sellable items for our Class of 2018's tag sale fundraiser on
Saturday, June 3.
The Class of 2018 is beginning its 8th grade class trip fundraising with a good ol' fashioned tag sale. We will gladly accept your donations at morning drop-off.*
Drop-off Donation Fridays:
May 15, 12, 19, 26
*please no broken or unsellable items
Thank you!
-The HVWS Class of 2018
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Dylan Lew (HVWS Class of 2013) is graduating in the
top 5% of his class at Newtown High School--quite an accomplishment! He will be attending Carnegie Mellon University in the Fall on scholarship, studying Engineering.
Sanni Cohn (HVWS Class of 2015) was chosen to go to the
New England Youth Breadloaf Writers Conference for four days in May. She was selected by the conference for her poetry. Islesboro School (Maine) is paying for her to attend. She is a voracious reader and though she doesn't consider herself a writer, her teacher encouraged her to apply. She was the only one selected from her school to go.
Maeve Rooney &
John Scott Disbrow (both HVWS Class of 2015) recently shone in Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School's production of
Our Town, directed by David Anderson.
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Sunflower Kindergarten
Isabel Gandara and Aliz Mihok
Spring is here and the Sunflower children have been enjoying the weather. They like to run all around the playground playing catching games, and if it rains they enjoy it too, because they love to play in the puddles and mud. Our circle is all about spring songs and games, and our classroom is decorated with butterflies and flowers.The children have also been practicing dancing and singing around the Maypole. Mother's Day is coming soon, so they are busy preparing their gifts for their moms and are very excited about it. At the end of the month we will have our last field trip, where the Sun Children will sail the wooden boats they have been hard at work making.
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Rose Kindergarten
Carrie Reilly and Heather Hemphill
Here's a snowy branch of May, a branch the fairies gave me... The Rose children love dancing around the Maypole and enjoying all the joys of Spring! We have enjoyed hearing stories of baby goats being born, new puppies that have become beloved pets, and robins' eggs that have been found in their nests! What a glorious time of year to be a child. Happy May Day!
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1st Grade (Class of 2024)
Allison Washington
The first grade is enjoying the warmer air and beautiful flowers that Spring has brought. It's hard to believe that the year is coming to a close, and we are almost second graders! The class has recently completed a math block in which they had lots of practice with the four processes. The children listened to a story about King Equals and how he always makes sure his faithful gnomes receive an equal share of jewels. Furthermore, the first graders have been very busy rehearsing for their first class play! It's coming along nicely and there is much excitement around it.
The first graders will perform their play for their parents on May 19, after the Community Sing-Along.
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2nd Grade (Class of 2023)
Leslie Lew
The second grade is in a Math block. We are reviewing and learning new times tables. The second graders were very excited to see the pattern of the eleven times table! This week we officially take over the third grade garden and comp
osting from Ms. Dagobert's class. (Pictured below, the second graders visit Riverbank Farm.)
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3rd Grade (Class of 2022)
Genevieve Dagobert
The third grade play,
The Child of the Nile, was an incredible performance. The third graders did a fantastic job. Their parents and teachers are proud of them. From the very first day I read the play for the children, they all loved it and made it their own. They enjoyed learning their lines and creating the props. One of their greatest takeaways from this experience is the fact that the children learned to work together behind the scenes, to support each other, take responsibility, and carry a play from beginning to end. When you think about it, this accomplishment is even more important than the play itself. This is the true meaning of life! This is what we are here for: to learn to love each other, to care for each other. Congratulations, third graders!
Scroll down for more pictures from their play.
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4th Grade (Class of 2021)
Vince Vojack-Weeks
The fourth graders finished their final Fractions main lesson block of the year by cooking for a class feast and the faculty dinner. They each chose a recipe that included at least one fraction and wrote it out by hand to include in our 4th Grade Class Recipe Book. We then calculated how many servings we each needed to feed both the class and the faculty, doubling or halving the recipe as needed. The project culminated in a delicious class feast. Faculty were unanimously and thoroughly impressed by the students' work with fractions!
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5th Grade (Class of 2020)
Ken Friedman
We are in the ancient civilization of Egypt and had a great field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We wrote thank-you notes in hieroglyphics.
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6th Grade (Class of 2019)
Laura Wittmer
The sixth graders have been immersed in Medieval History. We followed the path from page to squire to knight, with much discussion of weaponry and armor. We heard the rules of St. Benedict which were followed by the monks as they created beautiful illuminated manuscripts. We received calligraphy pens and practiced storming a castle. We heard the stories of many historical figures, including Charlemagne, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard the Lion-Hearted, and Joan of Arc. We are looking forward to our last two blocks of the year, Business Math and Mineralogy, and to our end-of-year caving trip.
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7th Grade (Class of 2018)
Emily Remensperger
The seventh grade just wrapped up an exciting week of chemistry! We burned metals to observe their colored flames. We tested the kindling temperatures of various substances (including the noxious sulfur incident which you may have heard about... or smelled!) and we observed the seemingly simple, but rather complex, workings of the candle. We ended the week by testing the reaction of borax and glue, which produces polymer molecule links that create SLIME! A delightful non-Newtonian liquid.
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8th Grade (Class of 2017)
Marleen DeGrande
As you may have noticed, the eighth grade was absent from our school’s campus right after Spring Break. We spent ten days in New Mexico and Colorado on our class trip. We flew to Santa Fe, NM, explored the city and visited Meow Wolf (ask an eighth grader about this), and traveled along the Santa Fe trail to end up in Cimarron, NM where we stayed at the St. James Hotel (a haunted hotel!). We continued on to Taos, NM where we went whitewater rafting on the San Juan River, visited the Pueblo (a UNESCO world heritage site), went hiking along the Rio Grande Gorge and Wild Rivers Park, and enjoyed delicious ice cream at Taos Cow. We then traveled to Alamosa, CO to do community work at the Great Sand Dunes National Park and explore the park. It was here that the weather changed dramatically and we endured wind, sleet, snow, rain, and anything in between. The sledding in the dunes surrounded by snow-covered mountains was a great success. Our final destination was Mesa Verde National Park in Cortez, CO. On our way up we stopped at Pagosa Springs where some of us got sunburned relaxing in the hot springs. We explored the park through some hikes and toured the Balcony House, an ancient cliff dwelling. Once again it was quite cold and snowy. Jeff James and Christopher Strilowich went on an 18 degrees F sunrise stroll! On our drive back to Taos we visited Aztec Ruins National Park and drove through Georgia O’Keeffe country. We recognized the landscape we saw in some of her paintings at her museum in Santa Fe. Our journey back to CT was somewhat exciting with snow, high winds, and rushing through the Dallas airport, but we made it back to LGA with only a few hours' delay. The Class of 2017 would like to thank you for all of your support of our fundraising activities. We hope to see you at our class play,
Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare on 5/25 or 5/26.
Scroll down for more pictures from our trip.
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Summer Camp Registration is Open
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There are a
limited number of spaces available at Summer Camp this year and weeks are already fulling up. Register today!
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Thank you to the parents--and students--who cook for our faculty meals, most recently the
4th grade. We truly appreciate it and the food is always delicious.
The 2nd grade sends a huge thank you to
Laura McKinney and
David Blyn for having us come to Riverbank Farm to work (and play in the river!) and for providing the class with organic vegetables. Thank you,
Whitney Flood and
Julie Retzlaff, for delicious bread on Mondays.
Thank you to
Jeppe Christiansen,
Chris Howard,
Vincent Vojack-Weeks,
Jim Hurley,
Jeff James and the
4th graders for installing our new basketball hoops!
Thank you to
Ken Friedman for leading the 3rd grade Passover Seder and to the
Barnes family for staying to help tidy up after the event. Thank you to
Jodi Knuff and
Tomoko Nishimura for organizing the Seder and to all of the parents who cooked. (Thank you as well to the
7th grade for pushing back the evening presentation of their amazing class play by 15 minutes so that the 3rd grade parents could attend!) Thank you to
Jodi and
Tomoko for their support with the 3rd grade class play and a special thank you to
Jodi for her stellar sewing and fabrication work. Thank you also to
Carol Reznikoff for her impromptu help ;).
Thank you to
Amy Rodriguez for collating information folders for the Enrollment office.
Thank you to
Lori Hudak for bringing HVWS outreach material to the Easter egg hunt in Newtown.
Thank you to
Dale Tucker for helping organize the 5th grade's field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Thank you to
Natasha Daniels-Pearson for running the School Store Spring Sale and for running the store generally this year! And a final thank you to
Jo Hurley for organizing one last Dr. Hauschka order for the year. Again, thank you Jo for your many hours/days/weeks/months/years of school store work during your years at HVWS. We will miss you next year! Thank you to our volunteer school store salespeople for this year:
Elena Merkulov, Dale Tucker, Rebecca Page, Marcella Kapsaroff, and Cheryl Hill.
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Psychology Today
Campaign for a Commerical-Free Childhood
Screen-free Week is May 1-7
TODAY
SCREENAGERS Tech Talk Tuesdays
On Being
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Seventh and Eighth Grade Set Sail on the Schooner SoundWaters
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Seventh Grade Class Play, That Scoundrel Scapin
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Third Grade Class Play, Child of the Nile
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If you shop through Amazon you may designate Housatonic Valley Waldorf School to receive .5% from your purchase. Please designate HVWS as your chosen charity and make your Amazon purchases at the Amazon Smile website. Thank you!
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The mission of the Housatonic Valley Waldorf School is to develop each child's unique capacity to engage meaningfully in the world.
Guided by the principles of Waldorf education, the faculty inspires in our students creative thinking, moral sensibility, and a passion for learning.
We offer a classical education that integrates experiential and artistic learning, in an environment emphasizing academic excellence, respect for diversity, and reverence for the natural world.
Our faculty, board of trustees, and parents work together, with dedication and warmth, to support our school community.
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Housatonic Valley Waldorf School | 203-364-1113 | office@waldorfct.org|
waldorfct.org
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