May 04, 2012

Rippowam Cisqua

We spent Wednesday morning at the beautiful Pre K-4 campus at Rippowam Cisqua School in Mt Kisco, about an hour and ten minutes by train from Grand Central Station.  The journey out there is an easy one – the trains here seem to be very reliable and generally they’re clean too.  We were greeted at the station by a new friend, Hadley, whose daughter Charlotte is a big Alice-Miranda fan.  Charlotte was introduced to the stories by one of her good friends from Australia, Madeleine and it has all come together from there.  I love the networking, the friends we’ve made and knowing that in the future we will be able to come back and catch up again with all of these wonderful people.

Mt Kisco is such a pretty place, with a lovely little village of shops and the most gorgeous houses.  As we headed to the school we drove out along country lanes lined with stone walls and some very large homes.  The school itself is pretty too – with plenty of grounds for the children to play n and well cared for buildings.  We met Laura, the librarian and headed off to her new library.  After setting up and a welcome cup of tea, Hadley took us for a tour of the school.  In the Pre-Kindergarten class I saw a little girl with the most extraordinary bows in her hair.  She was one of those rare children who starts and ends the day looking immaculate J

The overwhelming feeling while we were walking around the school was a sense of calm and purpose.  RC is a very happy place and that shone through in the teachers and students from the youngest to the eldest.

I adored meeting the Grade 4 students and talking to them about writing and Alice-Miranda.  We had some great actors too.  A little girl called Annabelle took on the role of Jacinta and a very brave boy called Wesley volunteered to be Alice-Miranda – except that we made him Alex Michael.  Jacinta was a wonderful tantrum thrower and Alex-Michael was the first child to do what I had assumed lots of them might – spy Jacinta’s hissy fit and run for the hills!

Charlotte outdid herself by baking three of Nana Jones’ apple pies from the recipe at the back of Alice-Miranda At School.  They looked delicious and the children were planning to enjoy them at lunch.  It was such a pleasure to meet the teachers afterwards too and I only wish I could have had a lot more time with the children.  But perhaps next year I will teach some writing workshops as well.

It was all over far too quickly.  I signed a huge pile of bookplates – which the very clever IT teacher whipped up for us.  The school is holding a book fair in a couple of weeks’ time and they are ordering books for the students and that’s a great way they can still have it signed without me having to be there – although I would like to be.

We jumped in the car and Hadley drove us into the city.  Charlotte came too as the orthodontist beckoned and afterwards we had lunch together at a great restaurant on 60^thnear Madison Ave called Philippe Chow.  I had assumed French but it turned out to be one of the best Chinese restaurants I’ve been to.  The surname should have been a dead giveaway I guess.