Please be considerate of our neighbors! Mind the speed limit and refrain from talking on your cell phone while driving - hand held devices are against the law in Vermont as of October 1st!

Thanks for your thoughtfulness when driving in our neighborhood.

Upcoming Events!

**Rain Date Change for the Hike for the Homeless - Sunday!

Hilltop Flash Mob for the "Hike for the Homeless"

Meet at the gate behind the old Wal-Mart at 10:15am on SUNDAY. Wear your Hilltop swag! We'll be hiking rain or shine.

Friday, October 17th

Annual Fund Kick-Off Carnival! 3-6pm

Admission - FREE
Midway games - FREE
Burgers - 3 tix
Hot dogs - 2 tix
French Fries - 1 ticket
Apple Pie Baking Contest - Enter your best pie!
Caramel Apples - 2 tix
Popcorn - FREE
Cotton Candy - 1 ticket
Live Music

One free ticket went home each child.

Tickets for sale $1 each at the Carnival.

Pledge or give to the Annual Fund that day and be entered to win either a pie baked by 2013 Pie Baking Champ and parent, Seth Harter, or a batch of red velvet cupcakes baked by Baking Royalty, Lynn Stewart!

AND if we achieve 20% participation of families to the Annual Fund by the end of the evening, a family has agreed to double their $1000 gift!

WANTED: gently used stuffed animals for use as prizes for our Carnival. Drop off in Amelia's office.

Saturday, October 18 10am-4pm

click here for the flier

Peace Day

It was a glorious Peace Day at Hilltop! Meeting Peace Buddies and making new friends.

Can you help?

Calling all gardeners!

Deborah Rosenzweig, mother to Ava and Shoshana in Elementary, has offered her gardening talents to lead the effort to spruce up the areas around our signs on Guilford Street and Summit Circle. She would love help cleaning up the areas, planting bulbs, and making a border on Monday, the 6th. Meet at the Hilltop sign on Guilford Street at 1pm. Any volunteers interested in joining her are most welcome!

Bring your gardening gloves and bulb planting tools, if you have them. Contact Deborah to ask any questions or to let her know you can join her. If you have any bags of mulch and/or compost you would like to donate, that would be much appreciated!

Toddler Room

When I tell people that the children in our classroom wash dishes, they often picture a child pretending to wash plastic dishes with a toy kitchen set or standing on an adult-sized chair at the family's kitchen sink. In our Montessori toddler room the environment is prepared so children get to wash real dishes at a real dishwashing stand just their size. It's exciting to fill the basins with water for washing and rinsing, to squirt dish soap, to swish the water to create lots of bubbles, and to use a small scrub brush to clean! Not only is it exciting for the children, but it also helps them to lengthen their concentration by engaging in a multi-step work, aids in the development of coordination of movement and growth of independence, and, of course, allows them to learn to wash dishes as Graham demonstrates in these photos.

Washing

Rinsing

Drying

Ellie, Hannah, and Mariam

Birch Room

This Fall season, the Willow and Birch classrooms will have our annual Apple/Pumpkin Field Trip here at school. Several of the children are adjusting to transitions, bathroom routines, and new situations. They still need a secure, predictable environment. As their comfort increases, so will their independence. At that point we expect to plan field trips away from school. As always, we will keep you informed via newsletters, calendars, and emails. We are here to answer questions and concerns- please do not hesitate to ask!

Vera spends time on one of our new fall works.

Finn practices pouring.

The children enjoy their first day using our new gym!

Willow Room

We have begun exploring apples and the transition into Fall. The children of the Willow Room are very excited to use our new apple and carrot cutting works. During group-time, we have been learning new stories and songs, as well as talking about feelings and emotions. "I feel excited today because we are going to meet our new peace buddies!" Indeed, we were very excited to meet our peace buddies from Upper Elementary, and sit with them for our second official All School Gathering, this past Thursday.

As we begin to turn our attention towards peace in our community, we will be making a "Peace Wall" in the classroom. This is an area in which we will post pictures of family and community. For this we ask that you send-in a picture of your child with his or her family to lay the foundation for this classroom installation. Please send pictures in by October 20th. Thank you!

Have a wonderful week, and be well!

Warm Regards,

Jonathan and Rebecca

Peace Buddies!

Yoga break!

Lower El

Our hike to Black Mountain was wonderful! Thank you to our many drivers: Tim Berg, Andrea Burke, Amanda Rupard, Michael Davidovits, Mel Kahn, Linda Schmidt, Ariel Brugger, Alix Fedoruk, and Rebecca Fontaine.
Inside the classroom, we've been reviewing and practicing using capital letters as our word study of the week. In Writer's Workshop, we're applying what we know about them to polish our personal narratives. We also discussed writing stories, not summaries, and we worked to include more detail in our narratives.

Map fever continues to spread in the classroom. Everywhere we turn, students are either labeling the states and capitals of our country, coloring beautiful planospheres, or focusing on the countries of North America on the pin maps. Many children have also created their own map projects.

Healthy Snacks and Lunch: Just a reminder that Lower El students need the best possible foods in order to fuel them for their very busy days. As per our school guidelines, there is no candy or similarly sugary items allowed in the classroom. Thank you for your support with this.

FIRST WORK SHARE/AUTHOR'S TEA: October 15th. Come hear your child and their friends share their personal narratives and enjoy some baked treats. Begins at 8:45.

MONDAY SHARING: Group "D" will share next Monday, Oct. 6th:

Have a lovely weekend.

Kerstin and Patrick

Upper El

The Upper El was in high gear early this week, preparing for our cell presentations. While many groups were finalizing their slide shows about bacteria or the history of the cell theory, one group was busy in the kitchen preparing models of a plant and animal cell where the following was overheard:

Where's the nucleus? OK, here it is. Where should it go?
Somewhere in the middle. Is that the ribosomes?
No, that's the lysosome. Hand me 2 more mitochondria. Do we have everything? Let me check. The labels are in my cubby.
Oh my Gosh! We forgot the golgi apparatus! That's what the fruit roll ups are for!

Ostensibly to teach each other about various types of cells, the main task was around building group trust and working towards a common goal.

On another front, Emmy had a great idea to turn her spelling words into mini-stories, grouped by a common spelling element. Example: Al was wearing his metal sandals when he had a fatal encounter with his rival's bike pedal.

Middle School

Last Friday we journeyed to the American Precision Museum, claimed by some to be the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. It was in this quintessential New England mill building built in 1844 that milling interchangeable parts (in this case guns for the US Government's adventure in Mexico) was developed. We were able to see how the water from the river was diverted to the water wheel and how the water wheel ran the power train. We are in the process of taking this historical example and translating our knowledge into our own water wheels and power trains now under construction.

As we explore the saga of the early Industrial Revolution in America with its rise of a factory class, first in the personage of the New England mill girl and then the Irish immigrant, we have also been reading George Orwell's Animal Farm. His allegory of the Russian Revolution and commentary on power is the perfect complement to our introduction of the historical power of American Corporations, social hierarchies, and the exploitation of workers.

Working on a Tub Wheel	Emma and the Machine
The wonders of a 3d Printer	Singing songs of millwork

Price Choppers Tools for Schools Program

Want to earn points towards school supplies for Hilltop Montessori School by just doing your grocery shopping? Well, now you can!

Visit the Price Chopper Website , enter our school code 15137 and register your Price Chopper Advantage Card. That's it! Every time you shop you'll be earning Hilltop points towards supplies.

Community News

Dungeons & Dragons Group starting -

Educator/Dungeon Master Brian Crego will be leading a group through a role playing adventure that involves fun, excitement, imagination, and cooperation. The group will meet alternating Sundays from 2-5 p.m. Details are still in the works.

If your child might be interested, please contact Deb Loevy-Reyes (Talia's mom) at dloevy@aol.com.

Kids Going Green morning of children's book sponsored by the Brattleboro Literary Festival - Sunday morning, October 5th from 10:00-1:00 pm at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center

At noon, Green Writers Press will present the first children's fiction book about taking action on climate change.

Josie and the Fourth Grade Bike Brigade is the first in a forthcoming series about Josie Garcia, a feisty nine-year-old girl from Brooklyn who becomes a crusader for preventing disastrous climate change and other environmental threats. In each book, Josie takes simple, ingenious actions that bring real changes to her neighborhood and the world.

The book is for ages 7-11 and is appropriate for schools, school districts, children's social issue book clubs, and families.

Bill McKibben, the nation's leading author on climate change and the founder of350.org said, "The Bike Brigade are real heroes, not only because they ride but because they organize."

The book has also received advance praise from the heads of the Sierra Club and Greenpeace and literacy experts at Teachers College Reading and Writing Project.

The website will be Josie's on-line home both to teach kids about global warming and encourage then to take action in their community.

Visit www.Josiegoesgreen.com for more information.

Hilltop Montessori School