MONDAY MEMO
Aurora led a song-parody writing activity during our Festival of Poetry and Prose before vacation.
Greetings!

Here is this week's Memo. We hope you welcomed a fresh, spring outlook during the vacation week and that students are focused on and excited about the last 6 weeks of the school year!

Happy Monday,
Nelia
NOTES
4TH GRADE TEACHING CANDIDATES
Our hiring committee has selected three candidates to each spend a day at Riverside getting to know our school community and teaching lessons in the 3rd and 4th grade classrooms. Laryssa Fortier (from southern NH, currently teaching in suburban Boston) will be here on Wednesday; Neil White (from England, formerly with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and currently teaching at the St. Johnsbury School) will be here on Friday; Hanna Galinat (currently teaching at the Peacham School) will be here next Wednesday.

Parents are welcome to meet the prospective teachers during drop off time in the morning.
SJA PLACEMENT TEST FOR 8TH GRADE
Parents of 8th graders interested in attending St. Johnsbury Academy next year should have received information from their admissions office about the required placement test on Thursday morning. Please let us know if your child will be away from Riverside that morning or all-day.
ANNUAL SPRING CLEAN UP DAY
Riverside's annual Spring Clean Up will be Saturday, May 5 from 9:00 am to noon-ish. Please plan to lend a hand with gardening, cleaning, fixing, painting, or sorting chores on campus that day, while getting to work alongside and build relationships with other Riverside families. This event helps us build a more supportive community while also keeping maintenance costs (and thus tuition rates) low. Bring your favorite tools and come to the front porch of the house to choose a chore from the bulletin board.
DADS ON SPRING FIELD TRIP
Thank you to everyone who signed up at the Fall Fresh Start to drive and supervise students overnight on our trip to Portsmouth, May 9-11. We would really appreciate the help of 3 more dads to complete our hotel room assignments and join in our adventures to Portsmouth Lighthouse, Fort Constitution, Strawberry Banke, the Seacoast Science Center, and the USS Albacore. If you could join us, please let Nelia know.
DAY CAMP AT RIVERSIDE
We will be offering three weeks of day camps again this year, during the month of June, for 7-14 year-olds. The cost is $175/week and the registration deadline is May 18. Detailed information about the schedule, programs and instructors, as well as the registration form, are available at our Day Camp at Riverside website .
June 11-15: International Cooking and Dance
June 18-22: Ukulele and Mask Making
June 25-29: Painting and Fiber Arts
ELEMENTARY SWIMMING
K-3rd graders will be swimming this week, please remember to pick them up at the SJA pool at 3:15 on Friday. We will swim again on May 4 and 11.
FILM MAKING CLUB PROJECTS
Check out the final cuts from our Film Making Club! Thanks to Matt Sullivan and Anne Campbell from Catamount Arts for helping make this happen, as well as last year's winning team from the Film Slam, made up of five Riversiders, who donated part of their winnings to bring film making opportunities to our school! When prompted for a password on these links, use "student."
RACE BACK TO SCHOOL
This new, annual event will be a family, fun-first fundraiser and end of summer community event at the Kingdom Trails: a run-walk-bike-a-thon to raise money for technology for independent schools in the NEK. This event will be organized by the Riverside School and Kingdom Trails and include volunteer participation from other local independent schools - elementary through high school. Competing students and adults raise will raise money for their own schools through pledges.

Race Back To School is open to everyone, teams and individuals. Relay-style races will include endurance and fun categories with FUN stations and challenges for all ages and stages of fitness. There will be prizes for endurance winners, as well as for the top fund-raisers. This engaging, kid-centric event will build a stronger NEK student community. 

The first race, August 19, 2018, is a smaller, test-event that will establish the structure and fun factors needed to grow this tradition in years to come.

We are looking for volunteers to donate their time to support the event, both the day of and behind the scenes preparation leading up to the event. Please come to a meeting on Friday May 4th at 8am if you want to get involved in supporting this event. We need your help, creativity and fun-put!
ELEMENTARY PLAY NEEDS
The Preschool-5th grade play needs donations of the following for props. Stay tuned for more details about the Play Day schedule, parent volunteer opportunities, and what students should be doing at home.

  • Big pieces of cardboard (to be cut into parts of the ships)
  • Paper towel tubes or wrapping paper tubes
  • 3 beach chairs
  • 1 beach floaty in some sort of fun shape (donut, dinosaur, flower etc.)
  • 1 empty bottle of mustard
  • Beach towels
  • A small cart that could be used as a lemonade stand
  • Crowns/tiaras (2 for king and queen, 3 for princesses)
  • A ship's wheel
  • Fake ferns
  • Fake berries
  • 1 toy cooking pot/cauldron
MAKE A PLATE FUNDRAISER
Suzanne will be completing the artwork with all the classes today for our Make A Plate Spring Fundraiser. Polly Yerkes will be collecting the artwork and contacting each class separately so that orders can be placed. You will be able to order as many plates as you would like and they will be available before graduation. They make great, colorful, everyday plates that are durable and dishwasher safe. 
Please stay tuned and be on the look out for more specific information. Feel free to contact Polly directly with questions or to see your child’s artwork - 802-373-7052/pollyyerkes@mac.com
SCREENAGERS: GROWING UP IN THE DIGITAL AGE
NVRH and The Family Place are hosting a screening of this new documentary at St. Johnsbury School on Thursday, April 26 at 6:30 pm and at Catamount Arts on Sunday, April 29 at 3:30 pm.

Physician and filmmaker, Delaney Ruston decided to make SCREENAGERS when she found herself constantly struggling with her two kids about screen time. Ruston felt guilty and confused, not sure what limits were best, especially around mobile phones, social media, gaming, and how to monitor online homework. Hearing repeatedly how other parents were equally overwhelmed, she realized this is one of the biggest, unexplored parenting issues of our time. Ruston turned the camera on her own family and others—revealing stories of messy struggles over social media, video games, academics and internet addiction. Interwoven into these stories, are cutting edge science and insights from thought leaders Peggy Orenstein, Sherry Turkle, Simon Sinek, as well as leading brain scientists who present evidence on the real changes in the brain when kids are on screens.
APRIL AND SUMMER VACATION OPPORTUNITIES
Stay tuned to this section of the Monday Memo throughout the spring, where we will list camps and programs that we have been asked to share with parents.
MOUNTAIN BIKING CLUB
Parent Westerly Miller has been coordinating with Kingdom Cycling and Experiences to provide an after school experience on the trails for K-8th graders. The club will be Fridays, April 27-June 8 (later than our last day of school), students need to be dropped off at the KCE center at the Wildflower Inn on Darling Hill at 4:00 pm. For the first two weeks, before the trails open, they’ll be learning about bicycle mechanics and maintenance, until 5:00 pm. The following weeks they’ll ride the trails in specific ability groups with experienced leaders to help them improve their skills, until 5:30 pm.

Interested families should sign up before April 23 by emailing  westerlymiller@gmail.com (please include child's full name, date of birth, approximate skill level, and parent contact information) and planning to make a payment on the first Friday of $40-50 (TBD) to KCE. Riders need their own bikes, helmets, and season passes, or to purchase an additional day pass each week. We would also welcome parent volunteers to be with the group each week to assist in organizing the kids; if you can help please let Westerly know.
7TH GRADE ARTS DAY
Suzanne will be taking the 7th grade class to Arts Appreciation Day at St. Johnsbury Academy on Friday, May 18th from 8:30-11:00, where they will engage in two choices from a variety of arts electives. We would appreciate the help of parents who could carpool the class down to SJA and back. Please let Suzanne know if you can drive students that day.
SCIENCE CLUB
There will be Science Club today from 3:45-5:00.
CRAZY 8s
Crazy 8s Math Club will meet for the last time this Tuesday from 4:15-5:00.
KARATE
There will be Karate on Wednesday and Thursday for this week, from 3:45-5:00.
LATIN CLUB
Latin Club will meet on Thursday this week, from 3:45-4:45.

On April 14, the Latin Club represented Riverside at the NH Junior Classical League State Forum at Phillips Exeter Academy. Events included chariot racing, gladiatorial games, a skit, and Certamen, in which the team won the first round and scored nearly 200 points overall.
CALENDAR
LESSON PLANS
30 Lily Pond Road, Lyndonville, VT 05851
phone: 802.626.8552
fax: 802.626.4156
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