Riley's Spring Auction

The final days to donate are here!

With only a few weeks to go there is still time to donate to the Riley Auction!

So many parents, teachers and friends have already been so generous it is wonderful to see so much love and support for our little community. If you have not yet donated a good option might be participating in a basket. We have 5 themed baskets that will be built with cooperative donations and perfect if you don’t know what to give but still want to be involved. With 5 baskets, one for every decade of Riley, there is sure to be something for everyone!

The basket themes are as follows

(suggested donations listed below themes)

Greening Your Home 

reusable food wrap, stainless steel straws, bamboo brushes, reusable produce bags, shampoo bars, laundry detergent sheets, soap tablets, small kitchen scrap compost bin, dish towels, wool dryer balls etc.

Treat a Teacher

a candle, wool socks, sturdy winter gloves, hand lotion, organic local coffee beans or tea, gift certificate to local restaurant, sun hat, any small gift that shows you care!

Baking Basket

tools and shelf stable ingredients for baking projects, baking mixes, baking/pastry/bread cookbook, etc.

Spa at Home

bath bombs, epsom salt, face mask, eye mask, essential oil diffuser etc.

Summer Survival Kit

a nice beach towel, reef friendly SPF, frisbee, goggles, road trip activities, reusable water bottles, small camping supplies/tools, deet free tick/bug spray, brown tail salve, aloe etc.

Email Caroline at caroline.saxe.cobaugh@gmail.com to coordinate or ask questions. Donations can be dropped off in Becky’s office. We will collect, assemble and photograph the baskets for you. Please, unused/new items only :)

May's Women's Art Night:

Hand Tying the Riley Quilt

Monday, May 1st at 6 PM in the Art Room

This past October during Art Week all the children and facilitators took part in an epic community art project with each person hand dyeing their own quilt square in an indigo vat. The time has come to bring together this special community quilt and we are so excited.

Join us next week as we hand tie the Riley Quilt! Absolutely no experience needed: if you can tie a knot (or are willing to learn), you can help us bring this community quilt together.

Bring snacks and drinks to share with the group, and help us finish this amazing quilt in time for May's 50th Anniversary Family Reunion & Picnic!

Optional: if you've got any large eye sashiko style needles bring those with you, too!

A Purrrfectly Poetic Trip

to Pope Memorial

Recently some of our children went on a field trip to Pope Memorial Animal Shelter where they met and wrote poems for the lovely critters up for adoption. They were all so excited to see who “their” animal for the day would be.

From Pope..

"Each student sat with a different animal and wrote down keywords and thoughts about that pet. They then went back to school and wrote poems about their animals. The creativity in these poems leaves us speechless and in tears in the best way possible! We have to share the poems with you. You'll find yourself smiling and possibly tearing up as you read these works of art!!

Thank you to the Riley School students for your kindness and creativity. All the poems will be hung with the animals still with us at the shelter! You are awesome!"

Spring Happenings

Around Campus

The peas are planted, the eggs are hatching, and would you look at that sky?! We're cruising towards May at top speed and so excited about all the warm weather projects popping up.

This spring at Riley we are thrilled to be growing the agricultural elements on campus. We're building a new coop for the chickens, putting up fencing that will allow our ducks full access to the pond, and drum roll... bringing goats back to campus as a permanent fixture throughout the school year! You also may have noticed an archway constructed out of cattle panels near the greenhouse- soon we'll be planting that out to grow a gourd tunnel ending in a sunflower house. What a dream!

We can't wait to offer more opportunities for the wonderful children of Riley to engage with the plant and animal worlds around them. Stay tuned for more fun updates on the horizon!

Thank you so much to former facilitator Peter Chamberlain for allowing us to cut all of our black locust fence posts from his property! It really does take a village, and we are so grateful for ours.

Riley Community Book Club

Thursday, April 27th 9-10 am

Contemporary kids need to learn independence and responsibility, yet our old ideas of punishments and rewards are preventing this from happening. To stem this growing crisis of self-regulation, journalist and parenting expert Katherine Reynolds Lewis articulates what she calls The Apprenticeship Model, a new theory of discipline that centers on learning the art of self-control.

Blending new scientific research and powerful individual stories of change, Lewis shows that, if we trust our children to face consequences, they will learn to adapt and moderate their own behavior. She watches as chaotic homes become peaceful, bewildered teachers see progress, and her own family grows and evolves in light of these new ideas.