Achieving Personal and Academic Excellence through Individualized Education

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Kate’s Note:   Quite a bit cleaner, heavier and more rested than when he entered the Pakistani village of Korphe in 1993 after becoming lost on a climb of K-2, the author of “Three Cups of Tea”, Greg Mortenson, walked into the commons at Rivendell School on Aug. 31. Anx-iously awaiting him were 150 Rivendell students, ages 3 – fifth grade, Rivendell alumni from Lesher Middle School and a class from Lincoln Middle School. Having just kicked off our second “Pennies for Peace” campaign to help support schools for girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, we were all embraced to greet our “school hero” and learn about his adventures and predictably about his need for money. For the next hour, we experienced the commitment and heart of “Dr. Greg”. Before us was a man whose dreams of climbing the second highest peak in the world were dashed when he and his partner became disoriented and lost. But out of that event, he became aware of the thousands of Pakistani and Afghan children, mostly girls, who were being kept from going to school due to cultural bias and lack of facilities. Dr. Greg’s life took a turn at that point and for over 15 years, he has dedicated himself to this cause. And that is his message. He told our children that he keeps a note on his mirror that says, “When your heart speaks, take good notes.” Dr. Greg inspired each of us to reach inside and do what we think is needed in the world. And he emphasized over and over that education, and only education, will begin to solve the issues in the world. He repeated through his stories that we all need to listen, respect each other and build relationships. Interestingly, he didn’t talk about money at all. It was a rare privilege for our students and faculty to meet Greg Mortenson. There are many pseudo heroes in our children’s lives. Now they have met the real thing. (Special thanks go to Maggie Walsh for arranging this opportunity for our students.)   

Kate 

September 2009

Rivendell Newsletter   september  2009  -  Issue  #37   Published September—May     Fed Tax  I D #84-0715315 Property of Rivendell School of Northern Colorado  ∙ 1800 E. Prospect Road ∙ Fort Collins ∙ CO ∙ 80525  

◊ Rivendell School does not discriminate on basis off race, creed, color, sex, national origin or physical  handicap in any educational program or activity sponsored by the school.   

Board Members’ Contact Information Craig Rickey—secretary Phone#: 225-1561 e-mail: craig@rivendell-school.org Edward Smithwick—president Phone : 377-0766 e-mail: edward@rivendell-school.org Jacqui Zipser Phone#: 493-8176 e-mail: jacqui@rivendell-school.org Jamie Yost Phone#: 686-2297 e-mail: jamieyost@comcast.net Karen Wolff —treasurer Phone#: 897-3028 e-mail: karenw@rivendell-school.org Maggie Walsh Phone#: 482-20182 e-mail: maggiew@rivendell-school.org Patrick Quinn e-mail: patrick@rivendell-school.org Paul Hach Phone#: 962-6787 e-mail: paul@rivendell-school.org Tara Bunch—VP Phone#: 484-9004 e-mail: tara@rivendell-school.org Tracy Lowrey Phone#: 407-9023 e-mail: tracy@rivendell-school.org Kate Duncan (not a voting Board member) Phone #: 223-9716 e-mail: kate@rivendell-school.org Vicki Mykles - Development Director (non-voting) Phone#: 484-2696 e-mail: vicki@rivendell-school.org

“The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.”

Calendar of Events

Morning daycare 7—8 AM Classrooms open 8 AM Instruction starts 8:30 AM Pick-up 3:20—3:30 Afternoon daycare 3:20—6 PM

Days Off—no school or daycare Oct 12 Fall Intermission Oct 23, 30 Parent-Teacher Conferences Nov 25, 26, 27 Thanksgiving Break Dec 21—Jan 1 Winter Break— dismissal at 11:30 am (Back to school - Jan/4) Jan 18 Martin Luther King, Jr Day Feb 15 Presidents’ Day March 15-19 Spring Break April 9, 16 Parent-Teacher Conferences May 27 Last Day of School - out at 11:30 am Special Dates - ~ watch this space monthly for updates Sept 16 Parents Back to School Nite Oct 30 FUNFest fun-raiser May 6 Spring Program - Rocky Mountain High May 17 start of Sky Ranch

O f f i c e W i n d o w

Rivendell would like you to meet Sarah DeNardo, our new computer teacher. Sarah has been at Rivendell many years as a parent (Ben and Hallie,) volunteer (especially working in the li-brary), and guest teacher; now she joins our staff. Sarah likes to travel, go skiing, and bikes where ever she can. Her cur-rent interest is perma-culture gardening.

DeDe Huebner, last year’s computer teacher, accepted a full-time Special Edu-cation teaching position in Greeley. We will miss her, and we wish her well in her new endeavors.

Back to School Night for Parents is scheduled on Wed. Sept. 16. Each teacher will be conducting one information session to help parents under-stand their child's schedule and the classroom pro-cedures and expectations. This is a very informa-tive half hour session and doesn't include chil-dren. We hope all parents, even those of you who are experienced Rivendell folks, will attend. The schedule for the evening is: Preschool - 6:15 - 6:45 Younger Kids - 6:50- 7:20 Middle Kids - 7:25 - 7:55 Older Kids - 8:00 - 8:30

RIVENDELL SCHOOL APPRECIATES THESE BUSINESSES FOR THEIR SUPPORT OF OUR SCHOOL . . . WE HOPE YOU DO TOO, BY SUPPORTING THEM. RIVENDELL FAMILIES, ALUMS, AND FRIENDS CAN BECOME RIVENDELL SUPPORTERS FOR AS LITTLE AS $25 A MONTH.

TO LEARN MORE, OR TO PLACE YOUR AD, CALL THE SCHOOL AT #970.493.9052.

“Back‐to‐School” means “Back to the Library”

Library Elves were busy over the summer get-ting books organized and user-friendly for our Rivendell Readers. As a result of summer re-organization, our collection is divided into age-appropriate areas. The picture books are now located on the wall that runs south from Pat’s math office. Books in the picture book section are marked with pink tags and are appropriate for younger readers and for adults to read aloud. Chapter books for older readers now occupy the “L” shape in the center of the li-brary. This year’s Library Mentors are ready to rock-n-read! The group is becoming familiar with call numbers and the Dewey Decimal system, learning to find books in our on-line catalog, and “mentoring” Younger and Middle Kids during library times to help them find just the right book. Don’t forget to order your child’s commemo-rative “Birthday Book.” On your child’s birth-day, he will come into the library to choose from a small selection of books, helped to affix his personalized bookplate, and be the first to check the book out from the library. The kids really enjoy this special birthday treat and like to see their names on the library bulletin board. Stop by the library desk to pick up a Birthday Book form. Adult volunteers are always needed to help shelve and organize books. A few minutes a week plus an occasional work night are all that is needed to help keep our library current and looking good. Stop by the library desk for a brief tour and to learn the basics of shelving.

The Library Team (The Rivendell staff is extremely grateful for the many hours Carol Fix spent over the sum-mer making our library more accessible and enticing. We also thank the other volunteers who gave their time to this project.)

Middle Kids ~Michele, Bryce, Inta We have had a great start to Middle Kids. We spent the first week getting to know one another with our "Me Bag" recitation and silly name game. Our first topic unit is Dinosaurs and we have incorporated "getting to know you" activi-ties associated with the extinct creatures. We will begin research this week on a specific dino-saur that they will present in class. This will be a warm up project to help them understand how to research a certain topic. Our academic routine is well established, and the students have quickly learned the expecta-tions of our work sessions. They are a hard working group of kids! We will continue to study and explore the fascinating life of the di-nosaurs this month. We teachers know we will learn a few things from your kids. Polly Walters will be in on Mondays to incor-porate our units with hands-on science activi-ties. Last week, she examined Pangaea and con-tinental drift. The students cut out the conti-nents from a map and put them together to re-semble the land masses before continental drift broke them apart. They were able to under-stand why certain dinosaurs were found in dif-ferent parts of the world, thousands of miles apart from one another. They continued this activity by writing about what they learned. We will take an adventure this month to Dinosaur Ridge on September 18th. We are fortu-nate to have an archeological dig site a few miles down the road from us. Dinosaur Ridge is a hogback west of Denver, be-tween the towns of Morrison and Golden, that beautifully ex-poses dinosaur-bearing rocks of Jurassic and Cretaceous age. Both bones and tracks of a vari-ety of animals from the Age of Dinosaurs are visible. Back to School night is September 16th. We look forward to seeing you and answering any questions you might have. Our session will be from 7:25-7:55. We only have one session per age group. We hope this will make the night easier, especially if you have more than one stu-dent at Rivendell.  

Preschoolers ∴  Mary, Maggie, Lois, Holly

Welcome to a new year!

The Preschool team will be taking turns writing the newsletter articles. This will give a little different perspective each month. One of the most amazing things about preschoolers is how fast they grow and how dramatically they change in 12 months. As we greet our 'old' students, they are moving through the halls with such confidence and style it is hard to believe they were once having

their first days at Rivendell. We are spending the month of September working on classroom routines, routines and more rou-tines! We are helping our children learn all those new skills necessary to function in a group, in a new class-

room, and with new teachers. We teach them how to make friends and how to keep ourselves safe. We are breaking all these new tasks down into small components to help them master each step. We want to give them the confi-dence to try the next step.

Something as simple as lunch is a big deal to a preschooler. We try to set up their environment for success. We talk about how to find the commons and what land marks to look for so they don’t get lost. They have bas-kets so they aren’t juggling too many items. We explain about lunch tickets and their choices in drinks. We encourage parents to buy change purses so children can be in charge of their own milk money (50c). We talk about good choices in what to eat first (“protein first”) and not the dessert. We teach them how to stay in their seats during lunch, how to clean up their own mess, how to open their own containers, and encourage them to try foods they have not eaten before. That‘s

     

Welcome back everyone! I had a great summer and wish to recommend one high‐light: If you ever find yourself in Laguna, go see the Pageant of the Masters at the Laguna Arts Festival....Amazing! This is the annual reminder to have students wear old clothes on Art day. Here's the sched‐ule: Tues: Some Pre‐schoolers and Middle Kids Wed: Some Pre‐schoolers and Older Kids Fri: Some Pre‐schoolers and Younger Kids Pre‐school parents please check with your teachers. We are jumping right in with a papier‐mache project (dinosaur eggs!) so send 'em ready to get sticky! Lots of fun projects are planned for the year. Anne

just lunch!! We have at least six more hours! Overlay this with the challenge of learn-

ing appropriate social skills and we have very busy preschoolers and even busier teachers! We are all tired at the end of the day.

Dinosaurs! Dinosaurs! Dino-saurs! We will be working with Maiasaurs (the good mother dinosaur), dinosaur art projects, paleontologists such as Mary Annings and John Horner, dinosaur defenses, and fossils. Of course dinosaurs could eat each other, but our dinosaurs are friends and always ‘help each other out’.

You are always welcome to stop by for a visit. Our children are eager to share. See you!

O L D E R KIDS ‐Ashley, Jane, Julia

What a great beginning! Our two classes are full of curious, kind and loving children, and we feel so lucky to have them. Each Friday we will send you an electronic copy of the newsletter and homework menu for the follow-ing week. The amount of homework and the for-mat is changing from previous years. On Mondays we will send a copy of the homework menu home in a folder which you will need to sign each night and return to us each day. All the research supports the idea that until 9th grade homework has no measurable affect on student learning. That being said, we will have homework each night in order to prepare them for middle school and to keep you informed about what your child is doing in the classroom. Each week they will bring their Math and Reading or Topic Work home to share with you. They will also be required to complete a weekly Daily Language Instruction (DLI) lesson that will focus on various Grammar and Editing elements. We will be doing a mini-lesson every Monday in class that will cover the material in each week’s lesson. The DLI lesson that will be taken home will be divided into 4 parts; Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4. We would prefer that one part be completed each eve-ning, Monday through Thurs-day, in order to ensure that your child grasps the concepts being taught. The DLI lesson will be due each Friday morning and a quiz will be given to assess their mastery of the skills. Last Monday night, Greg Mortenson, founder and executive director of Central Asia Institute (Pennies for Peace) came to Colorado State Univer-sity to speak to thousands in our community. Rivendell was well represented at this event. There was not a dry eye in the house, Greg’s sincerity and example inspires all of us. Rivendell had the dis-tinct honor of being the only school in Fort Collins that Greg visited on Monday. In previous years Rivendell has participated in Pennies for Peace and we continue to be involved in Greg's effort to bring peace to a war-torn part of our world through edu-cation. Pennies are raised by school children here

in the U.S. , which are eventually translated into schools and supplies for children in Pakistan and Afghanistan . Novel study began this week with Because of Winn Dixie. We started with a study of the author and proceeded to a character sketch of Winn Dixie, one of the main characters in the book. Our students wrote all their thoughts and words they had gathered from the book about Winn Dixie, and then they drew a picture of him. They will continue to create character sketches of all the characters in the book and ulti-mately will write an essay examining these charac-ters and their motives. Dinosaurs are our focus in topic work this month. Next week, we will assign a project that our students will, for the most part, work on in class, a dinosaur newspaper. Each child will pick a dinosaur. The dinosaur newspaper will include an interview with a dinosaur, an illustra-tion of that dinosaur, a narrative story about that dinosaur, a short essay exploring extinction theo-ries, and a weather report. We think this will be fun and educational for our students. Look for our newspapers in the hallway later in the month.

Foreign Language News Welcome back to Rivendell!

We're off to a great start in our for­eign language classes. Preschoolers have Spanish for 30 minutes a week. Younger Kids have Spanish and German twice a week for 30 minutes each. Both Middle and Older Kids are 45 minutes classes twice a week. We are enjoying the students' enthusiasm for learning languages. Our new stu­dents are settling in nicely and we're looking forward to a fantastic year! Beate and Brenda ­Deutsch ­Español

­ jeff benjamin

Badminton, soccer, track, hockey, basketball, volleyball, yoga, and dodgeball are just a few of the many activities we'll be doing in PE this year. We are looking forward to us-ing our new PE room, but we will

take advantage of the beautiful fall weather to be outdoors as much as possible. Please make sure your child has proper footwear so they have an enjoyable and safe PE experi-ence. Kids should wear tennis shoes or other shoes appropriate for running that will stay on their feet. Closed-toe shoes are recommended; flip-flops, slides or other open-back shoes should be avoided on PE days. PE days this year by class: Younger Kids: Tuesday and Wednesday Middle Kids: Wednesday and Thursday Older Kids: Tuesday and Thursday

Younger Kids— Seth, Suzanne, Scilla We would like to take this opportunity to welcome all our new and returning families. We are so ex-cited to have this opportunity to teach your wonder-ful children. The start up of the year has been great. The kids are becoming more comfortable with the schedule and the expectations we have for different times of the day. These past few weeks we have spent time getting to know one another. We have been sharing interesting things about ourselves and

becoming comfortable with our classmates. Developing relation-ships and social skills are an impor-tant part of a younger kid’s day.

We have started to ease into our academic work. Each week your child will bring home a Friday Folder full of work and projects. We ask that you spend some time with your child going over the work and reading the note, which includes impor-tant information about upcoming events and the sharing theme. As you look through your child’s work, please remember that it may take some time to figure out where your child places academically. Some children can be shy to show us what they know at the beginning of the year. We work hard to give them appropriate work. Every few months the whole school studies a differ-ent topic. Right now we are learning about dino-saurs. We are studying fossils and learning how they were made and what they can teach us about prehistoric life. We will be looking at the different periods of the prehistoric age and discovering more about the dinosaurs that lived during those times. Here are some traditions we would like to share with you. We encourage even the youngest children to develop a sense of responsibility. You can help by allowing your child to take care of personal belong-ings. Have your child hang up his coat and lunchbox or label her lunch ticket and put it in the basket. Success with simple tasks such as these help build self-esteem and establish self-reliance. A fun event in our rooms is celebrating birthdays. If you would like, you may bring in birthday treats for the whole class and teacher! Please let us know

what day you are bringing the teats and check with your child’s teacher about food allergies. We ap-preciate treats being easy to pass out and not too messy. By now you have probably heard of Zeroman. He is our very own super hero! He visits the younger kids every 10th day of school until the 100th day. He makes quite an entrance, dancing around the room and bringing treats (non-food items) for the kids. His visit helps reinforce the importance of the number zero in counting and place value. Thank you for trusting us with your chil-dren. Please contact us if you have any questions or concerns. Email is a great way to reach us.

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PAID Fort Collins, CO Permit No. 327 

(970) 493­9052 Rivendell School of Northern Colorado, Inc 1800 E. Prospect Road Fort Collins, CO 80525 RETURN SERVICE REQUESTED—Newsletter

Daily Schedule

Morning Daycare 7:00—8:00 AM Classrooms Open 8:00 AM Instruction Starts! 8:30 AM Preschool Day Ends 3:00 PM School Day Ends 3:20 PM Outside Pick-up 3:20—3:30 PM - preschoolers picked up in the classroom After School Daycare 3:30—6:00 PM Cell Phone: (after 4:00 pm) #310-9369 FAX #493-9056 E-mail office@rivendell-school.org Web Site www.rivendell-school.org

Lunch Schedule Preschool 11:30 AM Younger Kids 11:30 AM Middle Kids 11:45 AM Older Kids 12:00 noon

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