Tag: Newton Corner

  • Best New Pizza Place – Max and Leo’s

    Best New Pizza Place – Max and Leo’s

    Max and Leos, Max and Leo's, Coal Fired Pizza,  best pizza, NewtonMax & Leo’s Artisan Pizza Oven

    I consider it a public service to find good food and tell everyone about it – even if it impacts me directly, as in I will no longer be able to get in the door at a favorite place. I got a tip from a friend and was delighted to discover Max & Leo’s Artisan Pizza in Newton Corner. Open only three months, the place was hopping on Saturday night with regulars streaming in for take-out or waiting patiently for a seat (it has a nice beer selection).  With only 15 seats (two tables, a few seats at the bar and some counter space), it looks like it should expand and fast. You can build your own pizza or order one of their wonderful menu options. We had three pizzas (there were six of us – two adults and four children) and had to take two pieces home. What did we order? Three different pizzas, of course and they were all delicious. Great toppings, wonderful crust and amazing service.

    Their coal fired (yes, coal fired) oven runs at 900 degrees and can cook a pizza in two to three minutes. Coal? Really? Go read why here. Started by twin brothers Max and Leo Candidus, the place is obviously a labor of love. They even have a portable oven that travels to cater events. How fun is that? For me, I am happy to have found a great new pizza place to put in our rotation

    Max & Leo’s Artisan Pizza

    325 Washington St. Newton, MA

    617-244-7200

     

     

     

  • Literacy Time with Meredith! Wednesdays 3:30-4:45 (Newton Corner)

    Literacy Time with Meredith! Wednesdays 3:30-4:45 (Newton Corner)

    Kids Reading Literacy classes in Newton first grade 1st grade K kindergarten MeredithMy Mom Friend Meredith is starting Literacy Enrichment classes for 1st graders and advanced Kingergarteners. I met her in preschool and I think she’s terrific!

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    What is it? Literacy Time is an enrichment program for your First Grader or academically advanced Kindergartener. I will use my 8 years of experience as an elementary and preschool teacher, tutor, parent educator, and college level professor to enhance your child’s love of learning to read and write.

    This is a worksheet and workbook free zone! There is no MCAS influence to contend with, although the methods used to teach reading and writing in this program will most definitely benefit your child’s future academic achievements across the curriculum. The philosophy of Literacy Time is that children learn to read and write through authentic literature experiences and ample opportunities to put pen to paper with no outside pressures. Reading and writing should be fun. Our ultimate goal as parents and teachers is to instill a love of reading and writing in each child.

    What is the format? Literacy Time will be held in my bright and spacious kitchen and dining room area at 50 Playstead Road in Newton Corner. We will meet once a week for 1 hour and 15 minutes. The session will last for six weeks with a start date on Wednesday, January 18th and end date of Wednesday, February 29th. The time will be 3:30-4:45. There will be a maximum of 6 children in each session. (Disclaimer: Luke may or may not participate bumping the ratio to 7:1 upon my discretion, depending on the needs and dynamic of the group). All materials will be supplied. An additional session may or may not occur in March, depending on interest level and success of the program, with times, days and fees possibly varying. This session, the introductory fee will be $120 per child.

    I am CPR certified and have a BS in Elementary Education and MS in Educational Psychology. I am not a stranger to you: you know my behavior and safety expectations for my own kids and the kids who visit my home. My home is pet free and smoke free.

    What will my child do during Literacy Time?

    • 3:30 Meeting: Each session will open with a short meeting. I will share the pen with the children as they help me fill in the afternoon message on my easel. They will be learning phonics without even knowing it in an interactive and fun way.
    • 3:40 Shared Reading: Next, we will have a group Shared Reading experience using quality children’s literature and Big Books from my personal library. We will be word detectives: taking special note of interesting vocabulary, sentence structure, and punctuation. We will observe illustrations and use them to make meaning from text.
    • 3:50 Writer’s Workshop: After being inspired by the book we read, the children will have an opportunity to become authors and illustrators themselves through a Writer’s Workshop. Each child will have their own folder and a nice chunk of time to write freely. I will float from child to child conferencing with them and showing them the “book way” or “grown up way” of translating their invented spellings. Together, we will pick words out of their own writing to focus on as their “Word Study” words (more explanation below). Every child will have a chance to share their writing at the end of each Writer’s Workshop. They will consider questions, comments and compliments from their peers to improve their writing during our Author’s Share portion of the session. Every child will practice their skills as a listening audience and utilize their speaking voice to learn how to make constructive suggestions to their peers.
    • 4:20 Word Study: We will then turn our focus into a hands-on and sensory- based opportunity to practice the previously mentioned “Word Study” words. This is an updated and more research based approach to the traditional spelling test method. Word Study is the method being taught in the best teaching colleges today. Children will work with their “spelling words” that are meaningful to them. These are words that we picked out together from their own writing. They were words they actually needed and wanted to use during Writer’s Workshop. We will use such materials as shaving cream, corn meal, wiki stix etc. to practice our words.
    • 4:40 Poems and Songs: Finally, we will wind down our session with collectively interacting with fun and seasonal poems and songs back around the easel.

    How do I sign up? Please let me know if you are interested as soon as possible by emailing me at meredithandrews13@gmail.com or by calling 617-332-2752. Spaces will fill on a first come first serve basis. Checks should be made out to Meredith Andrews. Please do not send your child sick. In the event of inclement weather, we will follow the Newton Public School’s closing system and make up the session at a later date.

  • Newton Ranks #3 As Best Place to Live According to CNN!

    Newton Ranks #3 As Best Place to Live According to CNN!

    Newton MA Best Place to Live in American USA Pragmatic Mom
    According to CNN, Newton ranked as the number 3 best place to live in America!
    WINNER
    Top 100 rank: 3
    Population: 82,000
    Unemployment: 6.0%
    Compare Newton to Top 10 Best Places
    Less than 45 minutes from downtown Boston via train, subway, or express bus, Newton is divided into 13 “villages” loaded with classic New England charm. Most have pedestrian-friendly shopping districts, parks, and playgrounds.The town weathered the economic downturn fairly well, thanks to such stable local employers as Boston College and Newton-Wellesley Hospital. And Greater Boston, of course, offers a wealth of health care, education, and government jobs.Residents rave about the top-ranked schools, and parents are excited for the new high school opening this fall. “It’s absolutely beautiful,” says Claudia Wu, 51, an attorney with three school-age kids who has lived in Newton for 20 years. It should be: The school cost $197 million, an amount that sparked plenty of local outrage.After all, living in this community is expensive enough: a three-bedroom house runs nearly $600,000. If it weren’t for those hefty price tags, this town would be pretty close to perfect. —Beth Braverman
  • Wikipedia on Newton, Massachusetts

    Wikipedia on Newton, Massachusetts

    Newton Ma best place to live

    Newton has a Wikipedia page! I guess this is useful for anyone thinking of moving to Newton and right now the real estate in Newton, MA is a hot market.

    Villages

    Newton is a suburban city approximately seven miles from downtown Boston. Rather than having a single city center, Newton is a patchwork of thirteen “villages”, many boasting small “downtown” areas of their own. The 13 villages are:AuburndaleChestnut HillNewton CentreNewton CornerNewton HighlandsNewton Lower FallsNewton Upper Falls (both on the Charles River, and both once small industrial sites), NewtonvilleNonantum (also called “The Lake”), Oak Hill,ThompsonvilleWaban and West NewtonOak Hill Park is a place within the village of Oak Hill that itself is shown as a separate and distinct village on some city maps, (including a map dated 2010 on the official City of Newton website) and Four Corners is also shown as a village on some city maps. Although most of the villages have a post office, they have no legal definition and no firmly defined borders. This village-based system often causes some confusion with addresses and for first time visitors.

    History

    Newton was settled in 1630 as part of “the newe towne”, which was renamed Cambridge in 1638. It was incorporated as a separate town, known as Cambridge Village, in 1688, then renamed Newtown in 1691, and finally Newton in 1766.[3] It became a city in 1873. Newton is known as The Garden City.

    In Reflections in Bullough’s Pond, Newton historian Diana Muir describes the early industries that developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in a series of mills built to take advantage of the water power available at Newton Upper Fallsand Newton Lower Falls. Snuff, chocolate, glue, paper and other products were produced in these small mills but, according to Muir, the water power available in Newton was not sufficient to turn Newton into a manufacturing city.

    Newton, according to Muir, became one of America’s earliest commuter suburbs. The Boston and Worcester, one of America’s earliest railroads, reached West Newton in 1834. Gracious homes sprang up almost instantly on erstwhile farmland on West Newton hill, as men wealthy enough to afford a country seat, but whose business demanded that they be in their downtown Boston offices during the business day, took advantage of the new commuting opportunity offered by the railroad. Muir points out that these early commuters needed sufficient wealth to employ a groom and keep horses, to drive them from their hilltop homes to the station.

    Further suburbanization came in waves. One wave began with the streetcar lines that made many parts of Newton accessible for commuters in the late nineteenth century, the next wave came in the 1920s when automobiles became affordable to a growing upper middle class. Even then, however, Oak Hill continued to be farmed, mostly market gardening, until the prosperity of the 1950s made all of Newton more densely settled. Newton is not a typical “commuter suburb” since many people who live in Newton do not work in downtown Boston. Most Newtonites work in Newton and other surrounding cities and towns.

    The city has two symphony orchestras, the New Philharmonia Orchestra of Massachusetts and the Newton Symphony Orchestra.

    The Newton Free Library possesses more than 500,000 volumes of print materials (2004), as well as art, both original and prints, sound recordings and videos: the largest collection in the Minuteman Library Network.[citation needed]

    Each April on Patriots Day, the Boston Marathon is run through the city, entering from Wellesley on Route 16 (Washington Street) where runners encounter the first of the four infamous Newton Hills. It then turns right onto Route 30 (Commonwealth Avenue) for the long haul into Boston. There are two more hills before reaching Centre Street, and then the fourth and most infamous of all, Heartbreak Hill, rises shortly after Centre Street. Residents and visitors line the race route along Washington Street and Commonwealth Avenue to cheer the runners.

    Here’s an except of our schools:

    Preschools

    • Rosenshine Nursery School, Temple Reyim, 1860 Washington Street
    • Presbyterian Church Nursery School 75 Vernon Street
    • Temple Beth Avodah Nursery School, 45 Puddingstone Lane
    • Beth-El Pre-School, 561 Ward St.
    • Burr Cooperative Nursery School [1], 64 Hancock St., Auburndale
    • The Teddy Bear Club Preschool, 1466 Commonwealth Ave, West Newton.
    • Bernice B. Godine JCC Early Learning Center [2], Leventhal-Sidman JCC, 333 Nahanton St.
    • The Children’s Cooperative Nursery School, 848 Beacon St.
    • Temple Shalom Nursery School, 175 Temple St.
    • Walnut PK Montessori School [3], 47 Walnut Park
    • Auburndale Community Nursery School, 230 Central St.
    • Rockwell Nursery School at Lasell College [4], 70 Studio Road
    • Newton Community Service Center, 492 Waltham Street
    • Parkside Preschool, 474 Centre Street, Newton Corner
    • Preschool Experience, Centre Street
    • Upper Falls Nursery School, 45 Pettee St, Newton Upper Falls
    • Bilingual Beginnings at Pine Village Preschool 1326 Washington Street, West Newton
    • West Newton Children’s Center Washington ST, West Newton
    • Little Red Wagon Playschool 50 Winchester Street, Newton Highlands
    This list was not comprehensive so we did another post here that has pretty much every preschool we’ve ever heard of in Newton, MA.

    [edit]Primary and secondary education

    Public: Newton Public Schools

    Public Elementary Schools include:

    • Angier
    • Bowen
    • Burr
    • Cabot School
    • Countryside
    • Franklin
    • Horace Mann
    • Lincoln Eliot
    • Mason Rice
    • Memorial Spaulding
    • Peirce
    • Underwood
    • Ward
    • Williams
    • Zervas

    Newton has four public middle schools:

    • Bigelow
    • Brown
    • Oak Hill
    • Day

    Brown Middle School and Oak Hill Middle School graduates go on to Newton South while Frank A. Day Middle School and Bigelow Middle School graduates go on to Newton North. There are exceptions based on exact location of the student’s home.

    Newton has two public high schools:

    • Private
      • Fessenden School [5], A K-9 day and 5-9 boarding school for boys at 250 Waltham Street in West Newton
      • Jackson School [6], Jackson School is a private, Catholic, elementary school sponsored by the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Boston.
      • Newton Country Day School [7], 785 Centre St
      • Trinity Catholic High School, 575 Washington Street. See also: Trinity Catholic High School Website
      • The Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston [8], A K-8 Conservative Jewish dayschool
      • The Newton Montessori School [9] 80 Crescent Ave.
      • The Rashi school 18 Walnut Park(now in Dedham)
      • Clearway School 61 Chestnut Street. Clearway is a small, private school specializing in educating gifted children suffering from learning disabilities.
      • Mt. Alvernia High School [10], a private girls’ school for grades 7-12 located at 790 Centre Street.