Help a Mother Out

BY  |  Thursday, Mar 31, 2011 2:30pm  |  COMMENTS (4)

Like Desperate in Glen Ridge, this Help a Mother Out is about dinner ideas, but this mom-in-need wants specific help.  In this feature, we ask you, our readers and other moms and dads, to help out with your best advice in comments:

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Rate Your Montclair Teacher

BY  |  Thursday, Mar 31, 2011 12:30pm  |  COMMENTS (1)

The Montclair School district has put out a Parent Satisfaction Survey, to allow parents to rate their child’s teacher.

Typically, at this time in the school year, teachers are being evaluated by administration, especially those who are in their first to third years of employment with the district before they are given tenure. It is also the time that parents can recommend teachers for Weston Award. By offering up an online survey, the district is making it easier on parents to voice their approval or disapproval of their child’s teacher this school year.

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Ask Holly: Random Acts of Daffodilness

BY  |  Thursday, Mar 31, 2011 11:00am  |  COMMENTS (4)

If you want spring to come now this is what we are going to do: we will ban together as a community. We will hot glue silk daffodils to surfaces we never dreamed possible and the warmer tempatures will come. We’ll stop that winter spring snow from coming. The sun will shine the flowers will bloom and all will be well in Baristaville.

To make spring come faster this is what you will need: Continue Reading

Princess for a Night

BY  |  Thursday, Mar 31, 2011 9:00am  |  COMMENTS (0)

The annual Glen Ridge Girls Club spring fashion show was all about royalty on Tuesday evening, when 35 Baristaville princesses modeled themselves after Prince William’s bride-to-be, Kate Middleton and strutted the latest fashions on the runway. The girls were attired to represent Middleton’s fun and sophisticated style by local boutiques, including Thread, Dot Reeder, Ruby and Barbara Eclectic, with make up by Bobbie Brown and hair by Bangz Salon.

For the audience — particularly the crowd of elementary school girls who gazed upon the high school student models as if they actually were royalty — Britain’s nobility had nothing over the Baristaville beauties.

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Hairspray

BY  |  Thursday, Mar 31, 2011 7:00am  |  COMMENTS (0)

The West Orange High School Theatre Club will present its production of Hairspray: The Musical tonight through Sunday. They talented teens will bring the story of plump teenager Tracy Turnblad and her dream to dance on The Corny Collins Show, and eventually to racially integrate, it to West Orange High School…

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Montclair Food Revolution!

BY  |  Wednesday, Mar 30, 2011 12:54pm  |  COMMENTS (23)

We told you about the petition to keep ice cream trucks away from schools here. Now a group of Montclair parents have started a petition fighting food IN schools.

In the spirit of Jamie Oliver, they are starting a food revolution. the group called Montclair Food Revolution: School Lunch Reform states:

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The Care & Maintenance of a Hermit Crab

BY  |  Wednesday, Mar 30, 2011 11:30am  |  COMMENTS (2)

Okay, last week when I wrote in a comment on the pet post that hermit crabs make great pets I wasn’t being completely honest. They do make good pets, but if you are a hermit crab enthusiast or purists, you may feel a bit overwhelmed with the care required to provide a happy home for hermit crab.

I admitted last week I was the one to lobby for a pet crab, but it was only because out of all the possibilities, hermit crabs seemed like the best way to fulfill my parental obligation without actually having to exert any effort. One way or another I knew my kids would brow beat me into getting some sort of critter. I figured I had better get out in front of this potentially disastrous situation and steer it into more parent-friendly territory. Hence my ingenious plan of allowing my children to acquire hermit crabs.

That way when my daughter cries, “Why won’t you ever let us have a puppy?! You never let us have a pet!” I can say, “What are you talking about? I let you have pet hermit crabs.”

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Camp Highlight: Shoresh Preschool of Temple Ner Tamid

BY  |  Wednesday, Mar 30, 2011 9:30am  |  COMMENTS (0)

Shoresh Preschool Summer Fun Camp in Bloomfield offers a fun, creative, nurturing environment for the smallest campers. Shoresh is the Hebrew word for roots and was chosen because of the belief that establishing roots helps to build the foundation upon which children can grow and flourish.

Children from as early as 2- to 4-years-old have the opportunity to take part in a variety of fun-filled activities, including water play, arts and crafts, sports and games, songs, stories,and plenty of outdoor fun. Each week is a different theme and is offered in 4-week or 8-week sessions.

Shoresh Preschool of Temple Ner Tamid: Summer Camp Fun
Where: Temple Ner Tamid, 936 Broad Street, Bloomfield, NJ 07003.
Who: Children ages 2 – 4.
What: Theme weeks of fun-filled activities including: water play, arts and crafts, nature, sports and games, songs, stories, and plenty of outdoor fun.
When: June 27 – August 19.
Cost: Contact Arlene Sherman at (973) 338-1500 x 7 or email for more information.

MEA and Montclair BoE Reach Agreement On Aides

BY  |  Wednesday, Mar 30, 2011 6:11am  |  COMMENTS (7)

Interim MEA President Marge Astorino

After a long, and tedious budget process, the Montclair Board of Education’s final budget included the outsourcing of teacher aides for a savings of $1.7 million. Teacher aides, parents and, eventually, the Montclair Education Association (MEA) stood up in protest.

On Monday night, some members of the MEA and the BoE met to negotiate. Board Vice President, Leslie Larson told Barista Kids that, although she couldn’t give specifics until the agreement was voted on by both the MEA and the Boe, “it was a very productive meeting.”

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Baristaville’s Talented Harpist

BY  |  Tuesday, Mar 29, 2011 3:00pm  |  COMMENTS (1)

Violetta Norrie, a freshman at Montclair High School, has placed second in the American String Teachers Association National Solo Competition in the Junior Harp Division.  The finals took place in Kansas City, Missouri, on March 17, 2011.  Only two finalists were sent to the competition from the state of New Jersey (the other was cellist Brannon Cho, a sophomore at Millburn High School, who went on to win the overall Grand Prize). Violetta was one of three under-18 harpists to be selected from throughout the country to compete in Kansas City.  The semifinalists were selected via CD.

Violetta had a busy week in that she also made her Carnegie Hall “debut” as a member of the New York Youth Symphony performing the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 on March 13.  She has studied with Frances Duffy of Bloomfield since she was six.  ASTA/NJ will present a Winners Recital on May 15, 2:30 pm, at the Maywood Public Library.

Violetta lives in Montclair with her mom, Mia Riker-Norrie, Director of Montclair Voice Studio, her dad, David Norrie, at attorney, and her two brothers, Tom, a junior at Montclair High School, and Sam, a seventh-grader at Glenfield Middle School.  She aspires to study at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, and the Paris Conservatoire.

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