Newsletter November 21, 2014

Cornerstone News - 14Nov21
Cornerstone News
NOVEMBER 21, 2014
UE at Strawberry Banke Photo Credit: J. Pirro
It may be necessary to close school early. In
this case, the school will notify you or the person
designated by you on the early dismissal permission
slip. Please call the school only if your regular
plans are changed. The school will gather
information from parents concerning arrangements
for their child in the event an early closing is
necessary.
Many students have quite a long ride to school
and we are aware that weather conditions
can vary greatly between Newburyport, Newfields,
and Berwick. Traveling to school in any bad
weather with poor road conditions is always up to
parental discretion. Should you choose to stay
home due to bad conditions, please notify the office.
The winter months often take their toll on our
health and our patience. The unpredictable nature
of Seacoast weather in particular makes it a
challenge to gauge what the next day or even that
afternoon’s climate will produce. As always, if you
have any questions or concerns about the above
policy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Bad Weather/Snow Day Protocol
If the Cornerstone
School were in Upstate
New York, this article
would have to run within
the first week of school in
September, right? But the
forecast for today is for a high of 30º and there’s a
possibility of snow for Thanksgiving. So as we roll
through the last weeks of November, it’s always
best to review our protocol for snow days. As you
recall from September registration, each family
provided a telephone number to be called in the
event of a school closing. If would like to confirm
or change the number you provided, please call Pam
(772-4349). This is our second year of using this
system, but you may also want to avail yourself of
our usual protocol, including checking available
resources, such as radio, television, and the
internet.
In nearly all circumstances, when SAU 16
(Stratham/Exeter) cancels school, we will also
cancel. In all cases, you should hear Cornerstone’s
(in Stratham) name announced as a separate school
listing on the radio or TV.
Tune to WERZ(107FM), WOKQ(97.5FM), or
WMUR-TV for these announcements after 6:00am,
or click on our website,
www.cornerstoneschool.org. In the case of a
delayed start, school will begin at 10:30 am.
Primary students who are dismissed at 11:30 would
not have school that day. There is no early care on
snow days or delayed openings.
Cornerstone School Closing or Delay
(information should be available by 6:00 am):
WERZ radio (107FM)
WOKQ radio (97.5FM)
WMUR-TV
www.wmur.com/closings/index/html
www.cornerstoneschool.org
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Cornerstone News - 14Nov21
News from the Parent Association
LAST CALL for contributions to the Turkey Drive!! Monday is the
final day to bring in food and money donations for the Turkey Drive. Please bring in
your donation at morning dropoff. We will meet in the gym after dropoff to
assemble the dinners and deliver to local organizations, such as the Seacoast Food
Pantry and A Safe Place. If you are available to help out, please contact Tracey
Lyras (tclyras@hotmail.com).
Holiday Wreaths
Order your winter wreaths and holiday centerpieces! As a new fundraiser this year, we are offering
two choices for wreaths and a mixed green table arrangement. These are fresh greens offered at a great price.
Orders are due by Tuesday, Nov. 25th. Items will be delivered during the first week of December.
CORNERSTONE
WINTER WREATHS & ARRANGEMENTS
3 SEASONAL SELECTIONS
12” Mixed Greens Wreath
16” Boxwood Wreath
8” candle ring arrangement
!
$25.00
$25.00
$25.00
Customize your selection! Add a cranberry bow for an
additional $5.00.
Please see the order sheet for details. Candle arrangement can
be ordered with a red or ivory candle.
Please place your order by TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25th. THANK YOU
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Cornerstone News - 14Nov21
CORNERSTONE WINTER WREATHS AND
ARRANGEMENT FUNDRAISER
!
12” Mixed Greens Wreath
!
$25.00
qty: __
Amount $_______
16” Boxwood Wreath
$25.00
qty: __
Amount $_______
8” candle ring arrangement
$25.00
qty: __
Amount $_______
qty: __
Amount $_______
!
ivory or red candle (circle selection)
!
Cranberry Wreath Bow
$5.00
!
Please place your order by TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 25th. THANK YOU
Present Drive
Our own lovely Flor Bowen from LE2 has been a volunteer at the Family Reception Center in
Strafford County Jail since its inception. The goal of the center is to provide a setting where families
experiencing the incarceration of a loved one may receive support. Santa will visit the center on Dec. 14 and
give presents to the children. Please see the list below and consider donating a present to these children going
through a difficult time. There are no guidelines as to type of gift, but teens appreciate movies tickets and gift
cards. Toys should be unwrapped. If you would like to specify a certain gender and age group, feel free to put
stickies on the gifts. Please drop off on the bench near the office from now until Dec. 10. Thank you for
supporting this wonderful community effort!
Infants: 3 boys, 2 girls
6-9 year olds: 4 boys, 12 girls
1-3 year olds: 6 boys, 5 girls
9-12 year olds: 6 boys, 2 girls
3-6 year olds: 10 boys, 8 girls
12-14 year olds: 3 boys, 4 girls
Please join us for the next parent coffee on Dec. 9 at 8:30 in the gym. This will be our last meeting for 2014!
Feel free to contact Janis Timerman (timerwoman@comcast.net) with any questions. Thank you!
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Cornerstone News - 14Nov21
BookFair Committee Update
Thank you to the entire Cornerstone Community for making this year’s Scholastic Book
Fair a tremendous success. As of 9 am Friday morning our sales were $4,259! Final
numbers and Raffle Winners will be emailed next week. The book fair committee would
especially like to thank Lee Anne, Susan, Pam and John for facilitating the events associated
with fair. We would also like to thank the Marshall Family and Lamprey Energy for providing
food for “Breakfast with Books” and Dorothy Normand for providing the Dunkin Donuts coffee. Thanks to
Jessie Gilton for organizing the breakfast and Kerri Vivithana for organizing the dessert social. Another special
thanks to Selvi Lampman and Dani Megliola, last year co-chair's, for all their assistance in passing the torch to us
and helping kick off the fair. Most of all we would like to thank all of the individuals and families who helped
support the book fair this year by volunteering in various ways and purchasing books. We couldn’t have made
this a success without all of you. The Cornerstone Book Fair has come to a close, but wait it is not too late to buy
books! We are still $1255 short of our goal, so please continue to support Cornerstone and go to the online book
fair at: Scholastic. The online book fair will be open until 11/29/14 (Saturday after Thanksgiving), at that time a
one time shipment will be made to the school to deliver your books. No shipping charges will be applied to your
order. All books will arrive at Cornerstone. If you need to hide gift items from prying eyes let us know and we
will make sure it is discreet.
Toddler II Parking Spots
As we move into the winter months, and the snow invariably encroaches onto our
parking lot, the signs that designate the parking spaces for Toddler II families will need
to be removed, but please keep remember to keep those spots (the last 5 on the righthand side) open. Thank you!
Solstice Festival Date - December 18th - 3:30pm - Cornerstone Gym
Cornerstone’s Annual Solstice Festival, featuring performances from
students from Primary through the Junior Class, is a December
tradition.
The show begins at 3:30pm, in the gym, and culminates with an Upper
Elementary presentation of “The Mummers Play,” an Traditional English
winter rite that has not failed to bring Spring for twenty-eight years
running.
Children’s House Closes at 3pm on Wednesday!
Please note that all children need to be picked up by 3pm the last day before the
December Holiday break.
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Cornerstone News - 14Nov21
activities, it becomes obvious how they lead the child
from stage to stage. Let’s look only at addition, and
allow this specific study to serve as a microcosm of
the whole. The Golden Bead Material consists of
individual golden beads, beads strung into 10-bars,
bars wired into 100-squares, and squares wired into
1000-cubes. A child adding two 4-digit numbers then,
is adding the actual quantities. As the child gains
understanding, he or she will be presented the Stamp
Game, which represents a large step towards
abstraction. Here, individual tiles are stamped with
various place values (1, 10, 100, and 1000) in the
hierarchical colors: units, tens, and hundreds . The
child, however, still lays out each quantity, and makes
exchanges if a column’s total exceeds nine. Next in
the sequence of materials is the Bead Frame, an
abacus that uses the same hierarchical colors as the
stamp game, and represents another step towards
abstraction. A bead on the bead frame gains its value
by its placement on the wire and there are only nine of
each, a triumph of representational thought!
In this way, in these years, the child develops the
mental facility and imagination to see a digit as the
quantity it represents. This growth continues as they
move into the Upper Elementary environment, the
topic for our next article, in the next newsletter.
Called to a Lesson (a now regular feature explaining key
components and concepts of a Montessori education)
The over-arching theme of
moving from the concrete
to the abstract in a
Montessori pedagogy can
be discovered at each level.
At the Lower Elementary
Level, this development can
be understood most clearly
if we discuss the scope and sequence of the arithmetic
curriculum.
Arithmetic in Lower Elementary includes,
among many other concepts, computation in whole
numbers using all four operations. As they enter the
environment, children are, by and large, in the nascent
stages of “formal” computation. By the end of this
three-year cycle many, though certainly not all, will
gain a facility with math facts, and will be able to add,
subtract, multiply, and divide abstractly to some
extent, using just pencil and paper, no materials, a
remarkable academic and psychological, and spiritual
journey. It is an individual path taken within each
student.
Through the use of manipulative materials, the
child constructs an understanding of concept, and
memorization of computation that eventually leads to
“Now, child life is not an abstraction; it is the life of individual
abstraction. And when we explore the materials and
children. There exists only one real manifestation: the living
individual; and toward single individuals, one by one observed,
education must direct itself.”
The Photo Album
Maria Montessori
Upper El at Strawberry Banke
photo credit: J. Pirro
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