With some much needed time off thanks to our brilliant staff, I am pleased to say I’m a happy camper. Just time enough between grandchildren to send out a message to our blog readers to say Happy New Years!

One of the resolutions that would be “fabulous” for the new years is for parents to read the material that comes home from school.

At Christmas time, we sent home a calendar in a folded heavy paper forum with all our activities. We posted our calendar here on the blog. We posted our activities on the Parent Board. We sent home notes, told parents about activities at the door and reminded children all day long. The upshot was that twenty-five percent of our parents did not have a clue as to what we were doing at Christmas Time.

We are going to pursue the folded calendar heavy paper forum this coming year, and we hope that parents will read what is sent home.

Reading what is sent home from the Garden School will help parents get in touch with big school. This is an “Every Day” job. Papers going home are important. Please take a minute to go through your child’s folder and read his work, and all notes going home.

We will be starting a new reading and math program for the kindergarten starting January 3. We will be sending home a reading and math bag with your child’s name on it. This is not a toy. It is a tool. This bag will go home with your kindergartner every day and come back to school every day. This is where you will find your child’s homework, reading books, and flash cards. It is our way of saying we love you and hope you will enjoy working with your child at home. It is wonderful practice for big school, because you will be expected to work with your child all through grammar school.

We will be starting Geography January 3. We will be sending home some political maps that we hope you will encourage your child to study. The more places on the map your child can identify, the better!

If you have anything to share with the school regarding a culture or a foreign place, please see Miss Judy. We would love to have you as a guest.

If there is anything our school can do for your family, please let us know.

Happiest of New Years!

Tuesday, December 27, we are in school. We will be tackling Geography with a great introduction starting tomorrow. Lots of games and prizes We hope the children really enjoy our study.

Hoping that all the kids have had a great break and are ready to get back to work~

Please remember! In the case of snow, please look at Channel 14 weather for our school closings. This blog is another way to check and see if we are closed due to snow.

Please remember to dress children warmly during cold weather. Long sleeves please!

Please do not send children to school in boots unless there is snow.

Have a great week!

Here’s what you need to know and do to make your child’s party days a success:

Make sure your child’s Santa gift is at school today. Do not wrap the gift.

Make sure your child will have someone at the party tomorrow. It starts at 2:00.

Bring a small treat – a dozen cookies or cupcakes to school tomorrow to share.

Take your Child’s Christmas decorations home with you on Tuesday.

Make sure your tuition payment is in so we can pay teachers!

Enjoy your time at school on Tuesday!

Merry Christmas!

Every year we make candy at school, and every year it’s a hit. Now, I’m not crazy, but I am crafty, and when you put those two things together, you get: “I never do anything hard…”

The key to perfect candy is a good candy thermometer. Buy one.

The second trick is to use dairy products and not field products.

When it says butter…use butter, cream, and milk.

When I make candy, I make it so that not only do I look like Martha in the kitchen, but it looks like M is wearing her Superwoman shirt as well.

Here’s how to:

Truffles:

Using a food processor, use a box of powdered sugar and two sticks of butter…process and remove. Do that twice.

Divide the mix into six cereal bowls.

Into every bowl add a flavor. Here are some suggestions: fresh ground coffee, mini chocolate chips, toasted coconut, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, lemon, orange rind, peanut butter, ground fresh cranberries, chopped apricots, jams of any kind, but only add a teaspoon.

Mix plain candy dough with your flavors and put the bowls into the freezer. Taking one bowl at a time, divide the dough into the size truffle you want, roll into a ball, and put a tooth pick into the ball. Line the balls up on a cookie tin and freeze. You might want to label your flavors.

Once the candy balls are frozen, you can divide by flavors and put each into its own ziplock bag. Keep until you want a plate of fresh candies – for company, party, to take with you, or just impress a friend.

When it’s time to complete the truffles by dipping them, take as many frozen balls from the freezer as you think you will need. In a very very small pan, heat slowly a half package of your favorite chips like milk chocolate, or mint, or dark chocolate, or butterscotch or peanut butter. Add a tablespoon of oil, and a half block of paraffin wax that you get in the canning department of your supermarket.

Dip your candy balls in the chocolate wax combination, let drip to avoid a candy collar, and then place gall on wax paper to try. You only have to do a dozen at a time, and the rest can stay in the freezer for the next time you need to look like Super Martha. When you are done dipping, twist the toothpick out of the candy, and dip the hole into the hot dipping chocolate and decorate with non parielles, or nuts or unmelted chips.

If you make larger truffles, it goes quicker and it is easier, and they are like eating a whole candy bar.

Now, just for fun, here’s a recipe for about the absolute best caramel:

In a heavy bottomed pan, heat to 250 degrees on a candy thermometer:

2 cups white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup karo syrup
1 cup whipping cream
1 cup whole milk
2 sticks of butter

When the thermometer reaches 240 stir to avoid scorch.

Take candy off stove and add 4 teaspoons of vanilla. Stir.

At this point, you can do anything with this mix. Add nuts, pour on a bed of chocolate, drop chocolate candy into the setting caramel or nothing. Leave it out. It does not need to be refrigerated.

Caramel can be reheated to use as drizzle. It makes great individual candies and will taste great for ten days or more. It will take the shape of any container.

Have fun, and look like Supermartha any time you want!

Anyone want the absolute best nut brittle recipes? Let me know!

We were off to the Nutcracker early on Friday. It was a great set of seats! We were front row. I wondered if the kids thought they were watching a movie, or if they really knew that there were actors and dancers on the stage.

I was disappointed by the performance. A maid came out and told nearly the entire story of the Nutcracker…then there were two dance routines and it ended. The performance was twenty minutes late, and ended ten minutes early.

There was no rat battle and no introduction to the nutcracker. What was done was good, but there was no story.

I was sorry for the kids because they really looked forward to this, and it was a big zero.

After the Nutcracker, we went over to visit Miss Amy’s mom in the nursing home. We sang a lot of our songs and visited with the residents. Then it was home for a delicious pizza. The kids ate the WHOLE eight boxes…

The afternoon was slow and busy with play. Everyone was tired.

All in all, it was a nice week. Looking forward to the party next week.

Have a great end to your weekends!

Good Morning!

Last full week before Christmas Break! We are trying to keep the lid down…kids getting excited.

Classes this week; arts and crafts in the afternoon.

Pot roast as our new food this week. Hope the kids like it.

The weather promises to be warmer this week, so out we go. Please make sure your child has what he needs to go outside!

On Friday, we will be going to the Nutcracker Suite. It begins at 9:00 and in order to get there and get a front seat for the kids, we will be leaving school at 8:15. So children need to either have breakfast or be at school by 7:30 to have breakfast. Please do not bring children at 8:00 who have not eaten.

School uniforms will be expected. If you do not have a red sweatshirt, please tell me. I have it at school.

Please read the ill child policy at the front end of school if you are not sure of it. Children who need over the counter medication in the morning should not come to school.

Have a great week!

After years of making pork roast both at school and at home, I kind of fell on this recipe and love it.

You buy one of those enormous cheap sliced pork shoulders – you know, the huge piece of meat that’s cheap and looks nearly square and is sliced.

At home, you pull all your left over bread from the refrigerator. The three pieces that have been hanging around for weeks, the rye that nobody wants, yesterday’s muffins…the whole ball of wax. I’m not a believer in going to the store for stuffing…because stuffing can be made from any bread. You should have about a half loaf to a full loaf for this pork roast when it’s all put together.

Toast or bake your bread for about fifteen minutes, and cut into small pieces about the size of a checker.

Heat a stick of butter and a cup of water and a tablespoon of chicken bouillon in a pan.

Slice about a half cup (together) of celery and onion and any other veggie you like and add to the bread.

When the butter/water/bouillon is hot, pour it on the bread and veggies.

You won’t need salt because of the bouillon, but you will need pepper, and a spice called Masala. Add other spices that you like. I used oregano.

Put a handful or about a cup of fresh cranberries into the mix. Toss. It’s ready to use.

In a very large baking dish, string two pieces of string that can be baked the long direction of the pan that are long enough to tie entirely around the meat.

Lay the first piece of meat against the side of the baking pan and the next flat. Put a handful of stuffing on the flat piece and lift to stack next to to the first piece so that both pieces are standing. Lay the next flat, stuff and lift until the whole roast has been stuffed.

Tie your roast so that it holds together.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 2.5 hours.

One of the issues I tackle almost every week is faculty cohesiveness. “Working together” is my first order of business most weeks. When you are working sans break hour after hour in a small space with many loud children, the whole name of the game is being sure of your co-workers. And that surety comes from certain personality traits that actually determine whether someone is going to fit in or trip up the day. It is remarkable to me how often grown women opt to trip up the day for everyone around them.

Energy is probably the first and most important personality trait of a successful teacher. When a teacher comes to work exhausted day after day; comes to work preoccupied with too many worldly troubles; comes to work clueless about routines, projects, the order of the day; comes to work ill, angry, or caught up with everything but the job, the job rolls over onto the laps of the other teachers, and everyone takes a hit while Miss Pitiful Pearl is paid to do nothing.

When a teacher is reticent to step forward to take the group for story time, for class, to get kids in line, to manage the bathroom, take role, lead prayer, set a table or offer assistance to a teacher struggling with a project…that reticent teacher is doomed.

When a teacher believes that his or her job is other than pitching in and helping, she’s taking up space that might as well be taken out to the dumpster.

My favorite is the teacher who comes to “work,” only said lightly, in order to “have her lunch” and then spends the rest of “her” afternoon begging for attention and pity from everyone around because her lot in life is untenable to her…out, out, out damned spot! Go home; look in the mirror and thank God you’re alive. Get a grip; and put down the hand mirror.

As a school, we don’t have time to cater to the incredible selfishness of the narcissist. We have time for one thing only – to work as a team for the sake of the children whose parents are paying tuition. Our job is to teach, not to cater to spoiled.

A brilliant, illuminating and strong teacher, and we have five, is someone who comes in knowing what they intend to do for the day. Someone who is prepared; knows her audience; knows her work partners and what she can expect from them; knows the task and what to expect from the children.

The children don’t expect anything, so a great teacher will have something for each and every child…sometimes in a group and sometimes individually, and that can’t be done by teachers holding a hand mirror in one hand and a handkerchief or a cell phone in the other.

A great teacher has a rapport with every child, knows every child’s name, personality and needs, so when there is an art project, or a song, or a lesson, or even a coloring project, that great teacher knows what to say to a child to get the best work from him, and it compliments every other teacher.

Teachers who don’t speak to the children should be escorted out the door NOW. Mostly, teachers who don’t speak to children probably aren’t speaking to the other teachers either. That’s because they hold themselves in such high regard, that condescending to speak to a child, much less another employee, is beyond some special selfish plan they have created for his or her self. It’s part of the Narcissus Plan, and that plan only exists off the property.

OK, now that I vented, I feel better.

It’s going to be a great winter season, Miss Judy has learned some really valuable lessons, and all seems right with the world.

It was a wild and crazy week! We made some absolutely darling Christmas ornaments and decorations to send home. The children did a beautiful job and followed directions and got beautiful results. It’s really a team effort…it means eyeballing the craft and heading of any possible issues that little kids might have trouble with.

When faculty work as a team, the kids sail…fly…race to the finish line with great ability! I always keep an eye out for those teachers who bring a craft to the table. When teachers hang back and let others take the lead day in and day out, it really hurts the team.

The kids were great all day Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but on Friday, as the latest cold front moved in, they were atrocious! We gave out the Advent Boxes with caution…

We are really racing toward the Santa Prize…there are about six children in the lead, but that could change at any moment! One child will find his altruistic hat one day and earn three elves; the next day, someone else has picked up the hat and is headed down elf lane. It’s really remarkable to see.

We had an outstanding pork roast on Tuesday. I’ll post the recipe on Sunday’s Plate.

We also had one of their favorites…chicken soup. We added a lunch waffle that had onions, green pepper, celery and cheese in the batter.

We want to remind parents that teaching at home is a Godsend, but teaching wrongly is a nightmare. Please do not teach children to write their names in all upper case or capital letters. The first letter of their name is Capitalized and all the rest are lower case.

Please remember to teach your child to put on his own coat and hat. Knitted gloves for $1.00 can be purchased at the Family Dollar. These three inch gloves fit. Adult sized gloves are a nuisance on the playground.

We go out every day, so please send your child to school in LONG SLEEVES and a coat that zips or buttons and one that is meant for weather of 20-40 degrees. We DO go out nearly every day.

It’s been a great week!

Good Morning! Here’s what you need to know for the week:

Christmas gifts for the Santa Party are welcomed anytime. Please just hand your bag to the teacher who opens the door. Please do not discuss this with her.

Your child needs a coat…not a hoodie…not a light jacket. We go out most days.

Your child needs to be able to put his or her coat, hat and mittens on by himself.

Please review the ill child policy you have signed here at the Garden School. If your child needs Over The Counter medications in the morning…they don’t belong at school.

Please don’t forget to pick up your recipe cards at the front of the school. They are written for parents who want to try the cookies we make here at the Garden School. They are a little gift for you.

We will be making ornaments every day at school. Please check your child’s folder every day.

Have a great week!