The Summit Express
A community newsletter
November, 2008
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Where They Go From Here...
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The Sixth Grade boy sat forward thoughtfully in the big
leather chair. "I know it will take a
month or so to make the transition and to get used to everything in my new
school, but I'm really looking forward to studying math."
When I asked
him about things he loved to do, he added with a shy pride, "I'm writing a book
called Snake Wars."
The other
Sixth Grade boy had been in a little earlier.
He talked about his love of politics in general - and debate in
particular. "I know I'm going to be
ready for my next school, because I really know how to concentrate."
These
conversations took place as part of Summit's
formal rehearsals for admissions interviews.
These simulated interviews are a small, but important part of the
school's new placement process. Posing
as an Admissions Officer from another independent school, I had set up
appointments with each boy - and put them through a dry run of interviews they
would soon be having with "real" Admissions Directors.
In the
weeks before, I had spent considerable time getting to know each of the boys,
through individual conversations and through in-depth conversations with their
teachers. It is our goal to provide a
genuinely customized placement service. Summit remains, from its
initial admissions structure through all its years of teaching, and yes,
including this Senior Placement Process, guided by a conviction that each child
deserves truly individualized attention.
Life will demand that children conform to sitting in desks and turning
to the page that the teacher is on soon enough.
Throughout their years alongside us, we accept it as the unshakable
responsibility of the educators in their lives to meet each child precisely
where he or she is - and to guide them where their thirst for learning strives
to take them.
Cary
Hewitt, Summit's Director of Advancement, has
extensive experience in Boston
area independent schools, and knows the subtle differences in culture and
climate among the schools toward which our Seniors are looking. In previous incarnations, I have spent more
than two decades working with young adolescents as they grow and transition -
while also serving an active role in admissions. Together, we hope and trust that our paired
expertise offers each family with a sixth grader a dynamic perspective on schools they should
investigate. To that end, Cary and I have
reached out to other schools - and have welcomed in admissions visits from such
schools as Rivers and Bancroft. And when
the time comes, we will be able to speak up on behalf of these impressive Seniors
with the Admissions Directors of their favorite schools - as recommenders and
as individual advocates with the depth of knowledge and care that can only
arise from a genuinely personal setting.
In the end,
both boys are so bright and engaging that they will likely be seen as strong
catches for any admissions program.
While we hope that this placement process will enhance their readiness
for their next venture, the real work in preparing them has been done for years
and years - in their homes and here in the Summit classrooms, where they have
developed the depth of knowledge, the breadth of experience, and the articulate
poise with which to be appealing and successful self-advocates.
Richard Eyster
Head of School
Photograph by Macy Robison
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2007-2008 Annual Fund Report
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At Summit,
we have been extraordinarily fortunate over the years to receive generous
support from throughout the community - from parents, from past parents, faculty
and staff, and from wise and thoughtful friends of the school. The very building in which Summit resides was a gift of past
parents. And our ability to fund an
education of such quality is only made possible by the ongoing willingness of
our families to continue this pattern of generosity in support of the school's
Annual Fund.
Listed below
are the names of those who helped to guide and support us through the previous
2007-2008 school-year. We offer to each
of you who contributed our abiding appreciation, and our ongoing commitment
that every gift we receive will go directly to support and extend the meaning
of a Summit Montessori education.
Founders Club*
$10,000+
Anonymous
Claudia Davidoff and Joseph Kahan
Michelle and Roger Marino
Marino Charitable Foundation
Therese and Kurt Melden
Monica and James Shay
Summit Society*
$5,000-$9,999
Darcey Dakers
and Robert Kamanitz
Benefactor*
$2,500-$4,999
Thompson Greenlaw
Lisa and Judson Potter
Karen Ramsey and Giles Troughton
Jennifer and Peter Zschokke
Patron*
$1,000-$2,499
In
Memory of Carlos Baranano
Edie and Michael Bristol
Malu and John Doherty
Debra and Paul Gibbons
Diane and Thomas Hoke
Leo Michelson Family Fund
Patricia and Jack Murphy
Michele and Christopher Pierce
Kursten and Christopher TenHoor
Janice Thompson
Connie and Joseph Shay
Kate Wright-Breitfelder
Friend
Up to $999
Sofia
and Raja Aziz
Traci
and Stephen Baracsi
Evdokia Bandrowski
Lisa and Michael Campbell
Laura Carlo and James Coelho
Ninetta and Ralph Ciampa
Mary Ann and Gregory
Ciampa
Kathleen and Charles Collins
Cathy and Matthew Cuddy
Linda Dennison
Katherine Garrahan
Lisa Giallonardo and Jeffrey Prince
Dimitry and Yuliva Ginzburg
Gail and Michael Gregory
Lily and Michael Hancock
Mary and Thomas Heiser
Linda and Roger Jarrett
Jennifer and Mel Jiganti
Zhongzhen and Ruiffeng Li
Aina and Romaldo Linarte
Dace Linarte
Cynthia and Iain Mackay
Richard McKenzie
Judith and Gary Mitchell
Kelly Mitchell and Matthew Bernstein
Sherri and Jon Melamut
Diane and Robert Michelson
Betsy Kirshbaum and Jeffrey Weinberg
Karen and Phillips Kuhl
Alex Marino
Gillian Marino
Ross Marino
Lisa and Robert Mattei
Marilena Nussio
Deepa Pattahil and Rajesh R. Menon
Ardell Pearsall
Joan Pearsall and Rebecca Reynolds
Maria Silvia Perini and Anestis Panidis
Stacey and Taylor Petrey
Kate and Brian Poitras
Kristine and Mark Price
Jared Prince
Jason Prince
Harrison Potter
A.A. Rabii
Barbara Reisenfeld
Stefano Sguazzin and Marilena Nussio
LEADERSHIP CIRCLES *
Our thanks and gratitude also go out to the following donors whose contributions
sponsored special items or underwrote costs, enhancing the general
profitability of last year's auction at the Sandy Burr Country Club.
Gold
$300 and above
Heidi
Baracsi
Thompson
Greenlaw
Michelle
and Roger Marino
Diane
and Rob Michelson
Robin
and Robert Nardone
Michele
and Chris Pierce
Monica
and Jim Shay
Silver
$200 to $299
Traci
and Stephen Baracsi
Bronze
$100 to $199
Evdokia
Bandrowski
Mary
Ann and Greg Ciampa
Malu
and John Doherty
Gail
and Michael Gregory
Diane
DeCicco Hoke and Tom Hoke
Dace
Linarte
Kelly
Mitchell and Matt Bernstein
Stacey
and Taylor Petrey
Lisa
and Judson Potter
Friend
$50 to 99
Kathleen
and Charles Collins
Christine
and Frank Ciampa
Robert
J. Ciampa
Cindy
Hoyle and Robert Cushman
Susan
and Del Rousseau
Yun
and Dan Scollard
Content Submitted by Cary Hewitt and Richard Eyster
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| Kindergarteners Hit the Ground Reading |
Written by Stefanie Landgren
Photographs by Macy Robison
The Kindergarten Literacy Program is in full swing now and
the children are doing beautifully! It seems as though this time is highly
anticipated by the children, as they often ask me, "Do we have reading and
writing today, Miss Stefanie?"
 The Kindergarteners meet twice a week for two hours at a
time. Each day we meet, we have a group time that encompasses either a writing
or a reading lesson. During our writing lessons the children have been learning
how to successfully choose a topic, sketch an illustration, label their
illustrations, and then write their words. The children have been learning how
to s-t-r-e-t-c-h their words to hear each individual sound when writing. After
our group writing lesson, the children have some individual work time to create
a story that is later shared with the group.
Our group reading
lessons began with a unit on folk tales. The first folk take we read was The
Three Billy Goats Gruff. We read two different versions, and then the
children were introduced to using a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the
two versions of the story. We also talked about three different elements of a
story: plot, setting, and characters.  After our group lessons, the children then break away to
centers which include, guided reading, word study, the listening center, and
spelling and handwriting. During this time, the children are working in small
groups with a teacher or independently. We end our workshop time with a review
of the day's group lesson and a new word on our word wall.
The children will soon be starting a new handwriting
program, and we will be moving onto fairy tales
and fables. Thank you for all of your help and support at home. Your
Kindergarteners are Super Stars! |
Elementary Takes a Long, Fun Look Into the Past
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Written by Kate Remsberg
Photograph by Andy Lindblad
On a recent afternoon sitting in my office, I watched a man named Kevin Quackenbush wheel in and haul case after case of artifacts and interesting objects up to the Lower Elementary classroom. Once unpacked, the Lower and Upper Elementary classrooms gathered to listen to a presentation on the Paleolithic Age.
Kevin 'Quack' Quackenbush is an avocational member, presenter, and Trustee of the Massachusetts Archaelogical Society as well as the Chairman of the MAS Education Committee. His passion for archaeology started at a very young age and was certainly translated in the amount of knowledge he was able to give to our elementary students.
Here's what Ms. Kim and Mr. Andy had to say about his recent visit:
'The best part of the program was the hands-on opportunity to handle the artifacts. Children had the chance to touch original and recreated artifacts used by our ancestors during the Paleolithic Age. They learned about different tools created by people living the Americas during Stone Age. Objects such as an atlatl (spear thrower) and rocks shaped into tools for different uses circulated around the room.
Our Montessori study of Fundamental Human Needs helped prepare the children for Quack's talk about the ways in which humans satisfied basic needs for things like food, shelter, warmth and protection. All in all, the presentation was well received by children and teachers alike.'
For more information on the Massachusetts Archaeological Society, please click here.
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A Sagacious Summit Fifth Grader
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Written by Kate Remsberg
Top Photograph by Macy Robison
Bottom Photograph by Diane Michelson
If I had a time machine and that time machine had the power to put me back to the year I would have been a fifth grader at Summit Montessori, chances are I would have been some sort of incarnation of Katie Gregory.
I'm
not sure if I was simply asking the right questions, but there were
multiple times in our recent conversation that Katie and I found
ourselves chuckling at the things we shared in common. While I disagreed strongly with her distaste for caramel in
Halloween candy, we were able
to agree on our love for 3 Musketeers as the supreme
Halloween candy, Dustin Pedroia as our favorite member of the Red Sox,
and Math as our favorite school subject.
I
caught up with Katie after Upper Elementary's afternoon recess last week and learned quite a
bit about her and quite a bit about Summit. Katie's an old pro here
now that she's in fifth grade and ha s started her seventh year. When I
suggested that we go up to the art room to talk because I thought we'd
be distracted in my office, she sort of grimaced as if to say, 'You must
be new here.' She knew we'd be just as distracted, if not more
distracted upstairs as she casually proclaimed, 'right here is good.'
Katie's the boss. How can I argue with a young lady who outranks my
seniority here by over six and half years? I can't. And I won't.
Pictured above (left) during a recent art class, the concentration on Katie's face perfectly illustrates one of the phrases her teachers used to describe her: hard-working. The other word that sprang to both Kim and Andy's minds, almost in unison, was 'enthusiastic.' Pictured below with her class (right, red) during a Nature's Classroom activity, her enthusiasm and level of trust with her peers is evident by the fact that she's appears completely comfortable hovering at a forty-five degree angle above the ground. Katie is clearly unafraid to jump into anything, and our interview was no different.
When I asked her to tell me something that I might not pick up simply by looking at her, she looked down and thought about it for a good while before she said, 'the toes on my foot sort of stick together...' and her big blue eyes lit up as she looked at me and said, 'Wanna see?'
'Do I want to see? Of course I want to see!'
She hopped off her chair, slipped off her shoe, ripped off her sock, and flung her foot back up onto the chair where she had been sitting. And it's no lie - there's definitely a slight web between the fourth and fifth toes on her left foot. I almost regret that this question was so far into our conversation, because, well, who knows where our chat could have ended up with that as the beginning.
Because of the time of year, we did end up spending a significant amount of time talking about Halloween and the treasured Summit tradition of Mystery History Day. For those of you new to the Summit Community, even though I probably won't do it the kind of justice Katie did, I'll do my best to summarize how Mystery History Day works. Each elementary student (grades 1-6) dresses up as a historical figure, then brings in three clues - one hard, one easier, and one giveaway clue - about who they are to present to their class. In addition to the fun of trying to guess who their classmates are, there is a chance to parade through the Children's House classrooms and introduce themselves to our youngest  Summit students. This year, Katie chose to be Bethany Hamilton, the brave American 18 year old surfer who lost an arm to a shark attack! I was a bit confused as to why Katie would choose a costume where she'd need to lose a limb, but she reassured me that she would simply fold her arm into her sleeve to mimic the lost arm...phew! I was lucky enough to see Katie and the rest the costumes in action on the thirty-first as each class made a special stop outside my office.
As a fifth grader, Katie has a year of Upper Elementary experience under her belt. Although the main difference she feels this year is a much heavier homework load, she mentioned that being up on the third floor is 'very comfortable.' As Katie looks beyond Summit, she knows she'd like to work with animals - perhaps as a professional horseback rider or maybe as a bird trainer to have the chance to work with her favorite animal: the Peregrine Falcon. In any case, she tells me 'I'll definitely keep reading.' when asked what she'll take from her time at Summit. I can't think of a better skill to foster.
Katie is a young lady who has clear likes, dislikes, and goals. Because of the confidence in her voice, I trust her opinion immediately - especially when I ask her for some advice as a [relative] newcomer to Summit. Katie takes a second and assuredly tells me, 'be nice to everyone.' That's advice I'm willing to take.
Until next month... |
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SMPA
UPCOMING EVENTS
AND REMINDERS
The next SMPA
meeting is November 13th at 7PM. Wine and refreshments will be
served. Our Summit Specialists, Macy Robison, Edith Loring-Thomas and Tammy
Katzeff will start off the meeting, each talking about their program and what
they are working on with our children, followed by time for questions. We
invite you to join us in learning more about Summit's Art, Music, and Spanish programs. Our
regular business meeting will follow.
The ever popular Pizzeria
Uno's fundraising event will take place on Thursday, November 20th
at Pizzeria Uno's at 70 Worcester
Road (Route 9) in Framingham. A flyer and coupons have been
sent home. Visit Uno's anytime on November 20th for dine-in or take-out service,
present your coupon, and up to 20% of your check will be donated to Summit! So mark it on
your calendar, invite your friends and neighbors, and come enjoy this
family-friendly event! There's always a large Summit crowd around dinner time. Hope to see
you there!
The Book Fair is
coming December 2nd through December 9th. Book Fairs by
Book Ends will provide a wonderful selection of high-quality books
to choose from. The book fair will be staffed by parent volunteers daily, so
please be sure to stop-in (volunteers to staff are also still welcomed -
contact Mary Ann Ciampa if interested). Check out the Summit online calendar for exact times. Also
please note that Thursday, December 4th is Family Night at the Book
Fair, hosted by the SMPA .Come for pizza, friends and fun, and get some holiday
shopping done too!
We would like to
take a moment to thank the families who made the Annual Fall Clean-up a huge
success. We had record attendance and finished in record time! Our hard-working
team of parent and student volunteers helped to get the Summit grounds into tip-top shape for Open
House. Thank you, each and every one of you, for your time and hard work!
As always, if you
have ideas or suggestions for the SMPA, or are looking for ways to be
involved, please contact
Kate Poitras at katepoitras@verizon.net
or
Kate
Saunders at
kate.saunders@verizon.net
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Save the dates in November!!
Monday, November 10No School for Students
Professional Day
Tuesday, November 11No School for Students
Veterans DayThursday, November 13
SMPA Evening Meeting
7:00pm
Thursday, November 20
Pizzeria Uno Fundraiser
All day!
Wed., November 26 - Friday, November 28No School For Students
Thanksgiving Break
Tuesday, December 2 - Tuesday, December 9
Summit Montessori Book Fair
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A Place to Turn
November's donation:
WHITE RICE
Please drop off your donations to the bin located conveniently outside the Community Room.
Thank you for your generosity!
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