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It's May!
As we gear up for our May Fair celebration, we also thank the many individuals whose
time and effort helped make our April events a success. Thank you to Kimberly Trent
and her auction team for their hard work. Despite any challenges that came her
way, Kimberly had a smile on her face at all times. The auction ran smoothly,
the space looked beautiful, the food was delicious, and many people came away
with great items. Thank you, too, to Eric and Julie Martin for the wonderful food
that they prepared under less-than-ideal conditions! Eric was actually grilling
food outdoors during the event (because there was no access to a kitchen)--and yet all appeared seamless.
Thank you to
Doug Jackson and his daughters, Ella and Zoe, for representing the school at
the Hopewell Valley's Come Outside and Play community
picnic on the very same day as the auction! We are grateful for their time.
Thanks to
Bella Jaikaria for representing the school at the Hopewell Valley's
Come Outside and Play meetings and for running the Earth Day pinecone bird
feeder activity. We appreciate her commitment to making this happen. A big
thank-you to the eighth graders who helped Bella with this event--they helped to
make it a success for the many families who participated.
And now to
the May Fair! For those new to the Waldorf School,
the May Fair is an ancient festival to welcome spring. At the Waldorf School of
Princeton, we raise the maypole, bedecked with flowers and ribbons. The
children make and wear floral wreaths and celebrate with dancing and singing. Live
music, children's activities, and delicious food add to the festive mood of the
day. We invite friends, family, and interested members of the community to
attend the fair. This year the fair will also be an open house, and visitors
are welcome to tour the school buildings, meet with teachers, and see a display
of student work. Please read on for more
specific information about the May Fair. We hope to see many of you on May 15!
-Nancy
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DON'T MISS THESE EXCITING EVENTS! |
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Parent Council Meeting
Tuesday, May 11, 7:30 p.m.
Hagens Hall
Third Grade Play: "Joseph and His Brothers"
Thursday, May 13, 6:30 p.m.
Hagens Hall
Annual
Grandparents' and Special Friends' Day
and Kindergarten May Festival
Friday, May 14
Kindergarten program begins at 8:30 a.m.
Grade school program begins at 10 a.m.
The annual
Grandparents' and Special Friends' Day is an exciting occasion at our school.
Grade school guests enjoy refreshments, an assembly in Hagens Hall, and a visit
to the classrooms. Kindergarten guests enjoy springtime festivities and snacks
with their grandchildren and special young friends. All have the opportunity to
see springtime at its best on our lovely campus.
A few things
to remember:
- Grade school dismissal will be at 12:40 instead of 12:55. (Sixth and eighth graders are asked to stay until 2:25 to assist with May Fair setup and for play practice.)
- Children should dress nicely (in
school assembly attire).
- Since seating in Hagens Hall is limited,
priority seats will be reserved for our grandparents and special friends.
- Please leave the closest parking spaces free
for our older guests that morning.
RSVP to Jamie by Monday, May 10, to ensure
that a name tag is made for your child's special guest (609-466-1970, x112). Please
contact Diane if you are willing to help with refreshments, parking, or hosting for this
event (609-466-1970, x115).
May Fair
Saturday, May 15,
11 a.m.-4 p.m.
Please come
out and join in WSP's wonderful spring celebration, which will include artisan vendors and many activities for children. Thanks to the classes who have already come forward with activities. Here is a sneak
preview of what to expect:
Children's activities include beading, silk
dyeing, sword making, fairy tea, glider, treasure hunt, and the
pocket person.
We still need help for the event to run smoothly! Parents, please volunteer for general tasks like manning the registration table. Contact
Liesl Fisher at lieslf@verizon.net for more information about volunteer
opportunities.
We are excited to welcome a fabulous variety of vendors
to this event. Among the vendors are:
- The Enchanted Cupboard (Waldorf inspired wooden toys)
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Silpada Designs Jewelry (Sterling
silver jewelry)
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The Hand & Hoe (Natural
toys, crystals, and ceramics)
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Takai
Circle (Beeswax candles, candle holders and baskets)
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Elizabeth B Design (Semiprecious
gems and jewelry)
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Doodle Felt (Wooden toys,
felt toys, and fairy gems)
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Pure Indian Foods (producers of
organic ghee [clarified butter] from grass-fed cows)
Also, look
out for the school store's rummage sale at the fair!
Eighth Grade
Play: "The Comedy of Errors"
Thursday and Friday, May 20 and 21
Raindate: Monday, May 24
6 p.m.
Community and Board Meeting
Monday, May 24, 7 p.m.
Hagens Hall
Community meetings are wonderful
opportunities for us to gather together to hear about the year. This year, the
Board of Trustees invites you to attend the first 45 minutes of the May 24 board meeting. At this meeting we will review our work relative to the school's
strategic plan and hear about preliminary plans for building a new space for the 2011 eighth grade.
Fourth and Fifth Grade Strings Recital
Thursday, May 27, 2 p.m.
Hagens Hall
All parents are invited. Students should dress in black bottoms and white tops for the recital.
A Night of Comedy at WSP!
Thursday,
May 27, 7:30-9 p.m.
Hagens Hall
Admission: $5 adults,
$2 students
WSP is
pleased to host Ronald Koetzsch for his one-man comedy show, "The Beeswax
Conspiracy: A Loving, Irreverent, and Hilarious Look at Waldorf Education and
the Culture of Waldorf Schools." When not doing stand-up, Ron is a faculty member
and dean of students at Rudolf
Steiner College
and the editor of Renewal: A Journal for
Waldorf Education.
The event is
open to adults and to students in grades six and up. Please RSVP to Marla Hanan at mhanan@princetonwaldorf.org or at 466-1970, x121.
Please visit our online calendar for a full listing of events.
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NEWS FROM THE OFFICE
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Please keep
in mind that there is NO SCHOOL FOR THE GRADE SCHOOL on Friday, May 28, because
of Report Writing Day. However, early childhood will have classes as usual. The
entire school will be closed on Monday, May 31, in observance of Memorial Day.
The last day
of school for the early childhood will be June 10 (9-11:30 a.m.). The grade school will have
their last day on June 11. Grade school students will gather for mixed-age relays and fun from 10:45 a.m. until noon that day. Parents are welcome to enjoy the event in the lower field. Pick-up on the last day is at 12:40 p.m.
Summer Camp
Summer's
coming. . . . and there are still spots open at our popular summer camp. Visit us online to check out the new specialty camp offerings and to download a camp brochure
and registration form.
Bon Voyage
Things will
be quiet around campus during the week of May 3!
Thanks to
the pizza and soup that everyone purchased this year, the third grade class
embarked on their farm trip to Hawthorne Valley Farm on May 3 and will return on
May 7.
The fifth grade will travel to Kimberton, PA, on May 13 to participate in a wonderful Olympiad, where their studies of ancient Greece will come to life. Fifth graders from several area Waldorf schools will join together to throw the javelin and discus, wrestle, run, and long jump. Awards for grace and beauty as well as the camaraderie of the students make the Olympiad a memorable experience for all.
The sixth
grade is spending May 3-7 in Hulbert, Vermont, doing team-building exercises and working together on a high-ropes course. We wish all of
the students a good trip!
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SCHOOL NEWS
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Four Seasons Auction
Thank you to everyone who volunteered, attended, and/or
helped in some way to make the auction a success and a fun night!
I am especially grateful for the tireless efforts of several
people who served on committees and helped with setup Friday and Saturday as well
as cleanup Saturday and Sunday, in addition to helping during the event! These
people were there every single step of the way and I am truly honored to have
had them by my side.
My family: Jeff, Deryk, Camden, Kalina, and my mom, Joyce
Cari Ellen and Dale Hermann
Angela Kneppers-who I have nominated for sainthood since they
were finally moving into their new house over the auction weekend and yet she
still showed up ready, willing, able, AND smiling!
Laura McIntosh and her ever helpful and eager-to-work
children: Oliver, Ian, and Isabel
Thank you to the auction committee members for their support
and dedication: Karleen Aghevli, Diane Barlow, Leslie Dias, Marla Hanan, Bella
Jaikaria, Beth Miller, Jamie
Quirk, Sara Young-Singh, and Traci Zelinsky
And to everyone else who helped with setup, cleanup,
and/or various tasks during the event:
Annette Campana Mary Capoferri
Jan Curran Jim Doria
Seth Faison Peter Jahn
Lauren Jones Justin Kabis
Amy Krause Nancy Lemmo
Yifat Leibner Jenny McGahren
Joe McLean Sharon Mizels
Jeffrey Olkin Joanne Pawelko
Solveig Pearson Niels and Jakob Reeh
Nick Rumin Peter Sheen
Eileen Smyth Anil Warrier
Peter Wasem
A huge thank-you to Eric and Julie Martin for the delicious
food!
Thank you to Yifat Leibner for providing the amazing hummus
and to Deborah Ginsburg for the decadent brownies.
A big thank-you to Edwin Shank of The Family Cow. He donated
60 lbs of cheese and 3 pints of cream to the
auction! If you'd like more information about his Shankstead Eco-Farm, please contact
Edwin at Edwin@thefamilycow.com and
be sure to thank him for supporting our school!
A final thank-you to the entire community for your support!
-Kimberly
Trent, Auction Chair
If you were
unable to attend the auction, there are still opportunities to offer bids for "A Gift of Love" and/or "Greening the Golden House."
This year's "Gifts of Love" support our school's
tuition assistance program. Through this program we have been able to help many
children continue as students in our school, but we are now faced with the
exciting challenge that new children are coming to our school, and we need to
make it possible for them to enroll. The challenge is to provide them with
tuition assistance in addition to what we are already providing to currently
enrolled students. "Gifts of Love" are
fully tax-deductible. We raised $2,750 with "Gifts
of Love" at the auction so far!
Gifts to the
"Greening the Golden House" project
will support our landscape design for the entrance area to the Golden House.
These gifts are also fully tax-deductible, and we raised $250 toward this
project at the auction.
Please
contact Diane at 609-466-1970, x115, development@princetonwaldorf.org if you are interested in making a
contribution.
Murder Mystery Dinner Tickets Still Available
This joint
is jumpin! Roll down
your stockings and hop in your breezer! Get ready for a journey through time to a Jazz-Age night of
dinner and mystery in a 1928 speakeasy! Come to where Gatsby and gangsters,
flappers and flyboys mingled amid smoke and gin. A place where the food is hot
and the music hotter. Where anything could happen--and how!
This year's
second grade class parents will host a Murder Mystery dinner for 20-40 people
at the Historic McGahren Barn on October 23, 2010, where you are the star and
help figure out whodunit! Guaranteed to be the bee's knees! Bring your beverage
of choice and be sure to come dressed in 1920s attire.
Tickets are
$60 each and can be purchased by contacting Jamie Quirk in the office,
609-466-1970, x112, jquirk@princetonwaldorf.org.
Only 11 tickets remaining! Reserve yours before they are gone!
Welcome to Two
New Families!
The Binnie Family
Fergus (Gus)
Binnie lives in Princeton with his younger brother Calum, older sister Iona, parents Alastair and Zoë, and Edison the cat. Gus
like to play Dungeons and Dragons and soccer, and enjoys getting up on stage. Alastair
works at Bristol Myers Squibb, and Zoë directs Stone Soup Circus (Princeton's own community circus) and works part-time for
the American Youth Circus Organization. The family moved to Princeton two years
ago from New Haven, Connecticut. Gus was born in New Haven, just a few weeks after his parents and sister
arrived from their native Britain.
-Zoë Brookes, Alastair, Gus, Iona, and Calum Binnie
The Chiang Family
Thank you
for this opportunity to introduce our family. Our son Anderson joined Ms.
Cirianni-Jones's kindergarten class in April. He has proudly brought the bread
home to share with us that he made at school for the past two weeks. I learned
about Waldorf education from being a Community Support Agriculture (CSA) member
of Ms. Phinney's organic farm. We are very happy that our family is now part of
the Waldorf community. To spend more
time with my two children, I recently resigned from a management position at a
Fortune 50 pharmaceutical company. Anderson's
older brother Andrew is in the sixth grade of Montgomery Lower
Middle School. Our family
loves traveling (we have a goal to visit all 58 U.S. national parks), and so far have been to 30! We also have visited some national parks outside of the U.S. We
look forward to meeting you and becoming involved in the Waldorf community.
-PT, Tingli Lee, Andrew, and Anderson Chiang
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WSP ENRICHMENT OFFERINGS
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Fort-Building Enrichment Program
Thursday, May 6,
After school-4:45 p.m.
Cost: $20 per student
Space still available! Due to
popular demand, a second Fort-Building session has been added! Don't miss this
opportunity to come and build with experienced Wilderness Adventurer John
Hunt!
During this
session, John will teach students of various ages the importance of shelter
building during an outdoor excursion. The children will then learn to build a
fort, also known as a debris hut, with materials native to our area, such as
fallen branches and grasses. The 20+ sprawling acres of the Waldorf Campus and
creek will provide an outdoor classroom for this program. Together, children of
various ages will enjoy this natural experience of building forts!
To register,
contact Jessica Alfaro at 609-466-1970, x110, or jalfaro@princetonwaldorf.org.
Please visit our website here for more
information about the enrichment program offerings.
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THIS AND THAT ...
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2nd Annual School
Store Rummage Sale at May Fair
This is a great way to recycle items and
help raise money for our school!
Here is how it works: Spring is a great time for clearing out the old to
make room for the new. Please go through your toys, books, and children's rain gear and
look for any items suitable for donation. Nothing is too big or small.
Bring in Waldorf-inspired books and toys to the school store. Please
be sure your items are clearly marked "rummage sale." See Traci if you would
like a tax donation/write-off slip.
Some
examples of possible donations are wooden trucks, dolls, handmade or wooden
toys, book shelves, and wooden kitchens and play stands.
Questions?
See Traci at the store or e-mail her at banyontree17@hotmail.com.
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EVENTS IN THE WIDER COMMUNITY
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CommonGround Presents
Dr. Elizabeth Schroeder of Answer
"How
to Talk to Your Kids About Sex"
Thursday, May 13, 7:30-9 p.m.
The Pennington School
(click here for directions to the school)
Admission is free.
Learn about Biodynamic
Gardening!
Sunday, May 16, 9 a.m.-4:30
p.m.
In Nurturing Hands
23 Cranberry Lane
Delran,
NJ 08075
Alumni parent Silvia Gorostiza
welcomes people to a seminar about biodynamic gardening hosted by her in-home
school, In Nurturing Hands. Jason Harris of the Josephine Porter Institute for
Applied Bio-dynamics (JPI) will give a general overview presentation of
Biodynamics while concentrating on the making of Barrel Compost / Compound
Preparation; or "Cow Pat Pit." The workshop will also include a general
introduction to the practical use of the Astronomical calendar.
The workshop is $95, and
includes an organic lunch. Call (856)-652-9604 to reserve your spot.
Adventure Game Theater at WSP
Adventure
Game Theater is happening again this year: June 18-20 at WSP. It is open to
students in grades 6-8 and alumni.
Contact Jane Martin at eolseminars@comcast.net to get a brochure or click here. Experienced alumni are welcome to come and be SPC's (monsters,
fairies, etc.).
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NEWS FROM OUR ALUMNI
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On the weekend of April 29, High
Mowing School
in Wilton, New
Hampshire, presented a production of Gilbert and
Sullivan's popular light opera, The Pirates of Penzance. Alumni parent Dale
Coye (husband of former class teacher Bev Boyer) directed the production, and Princeton Waldorf school alumna
Amanda Mullen appeared in this comic tale.
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WALDORF IN THE NEWS
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"Tech Gets a Time-Out"
By Dan Fost
"Charges of hypocrisy be damned: Some Silicon Valley tech wizards
are quietly raising their kids outside the lurid digital landscape that their
own industry calls childhood," begins Fost's piece in this month's San Francisco Magazine.
"Brad
Wurtz," writes Fost, "another Silicon Valley veteran, even
argues that Waldorf is the best kind of training for the tech world. A former
Cisco executive, he's now CEO of an energy-management company called Power
Assure, and he has three kids in Waldorf schools. 'What's valued in Silicon Valley is not just the ability to write code,' he
says. 'What matters is creativity and the ability to communicate effectively
with a team and it's getting harder and harder to find people who are able to
do that. But that's what they foster at Waldorf.'" Read more here.
"Soul Man"
Douglas
Brenner of the New York Times (and a Waldorf
School alumnus) discusses "Rudolf
Steiner: Alchemy of the Everyday," a traveling exhibition organized by the Vitra Design
Museum in collaboration with the
Kunstmuseums of Wolfsburg and Stuttgart.
The exhibition opens on May 13 in Wolfsburg,
Germany, and it
will be Steiner's first major retrospective ever staged outside the
anthroposophic community. Read more here.
"Malibu Compost: Love, Compassion,
Gratitude,
and Cow Manure"
By Martha Groves
Waldorf alum Colum Riley, class of 1992 at Kimberton, is the
co-founder and director of operations for one of the hottest new companies on
the West Coast. His company, Malibu Compost, not only makes and sells Biodynamic compost, but also rescues cows that are about to be slaughtered for
beef.
Read the article from the April 19 Los Angeles Times here.
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ARTICLES OF INTEREST
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| "Playtime Is Over"
By David Elkind
From the New York Times: "Recess is no longer child's
play. Schools around the country, concerned about bullying and arguments over
the use of the equipment, are increasingly hiring 'recess
coaches' to oversee students' free time. Playworks, a nonprofit training
company that has placed coaches at 170 schools from Boston
to Los Angeles,
is now expanding thanks to an $18 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation." Read more here.
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SAVE THE DATES
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End
of the Year Grade School Assembly
Saturday, June 5, 9:30 a.m.
Princeton
High School Auditorium (Directions here)
All Grade School children are asked to arrive no
later than 9:15 a.m. to join their classes. Children who are
playing stringed instruments need to come early, at 9 a.m., for tuning. Please
leave some extra time for parking and entry into the high school. Early
Childhood families are most welcome to attend!
Graduation, Class of 2010
Sunday, June 6, 1:30 p.m.
Waldorf School of Princeton
St. John's
Festival & Bonfire
Thursday, June 24, 8 p.m.
Waldorf School of Princeton
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