Here in the Midwest, we go back to school really early. This year, our start date is August 13. As we begin to count down the field trips and continue to gut the school of old stuff, clean out bookcases, reduce the stockpile of “can’t do withouts” in the bathrooms, paint walls that are dusty and ready for something new…buy new furniture, move old furniture, and approach constant problems from new approaches…the call to overhaul tired classes for something new is now screaming in my ear.

Today I bought cream cheese boxes for crayons. I bought pencil sharpeners for every kindergartner, I have folders donated by a dear friend…she also donated the crayons and the glue sticks. I am planning the tool bag that we will issue every kindergarten student. This is an important part of starting school…new stuff…and the delight in knowing that “you can handle all this new stuff all by yourself.”

As the reading teacher, the daunting job of teaching 4,5,and 6 year old children to read, to write, and to take care of their belongings is a huge project. Most kindergartens begin the year with children who don’t know anything to children who can read. It’s no different at the Garden School. Giving every child what he needs is the trick. That’s why I am always delighted to present to parents the smallness of our classes and the determination of our teachers.

As I lovingly collect great tools for the children, and look through the books that we have, and the books I’ve written for class, and the games I’ve created for the kids, the wheels turn into the possibilities of all we can do this year. My goal is excellence in all things child related…no shyness there…

I will be teaching music and geography and circle time this year. My goals for music include a repertoire of songs children can sing, instruments they can play, and a new start in listening to the great masters.

Circle time will include a few minutes every morning about something new…a topic like mummies…the life cycle of a leaf…the body parts of a worm…how you digest food…colors…the story of Adam and Eve…you know…the fun stuff most kids love and most teachers don’t know anything about…it’s an outlet for years of collecting information that has no place to go…what can I say?

As I rearrange my classroom, clean the windows, polish the tables, make properly written name tags, find just the right paperwork, books to read, games to play…I can honestly say I’m excited…

It’s been an incredibly difficult summer. Following a magnificent spring, our summer turned south with a day after day menu of temperatures in the 100s. We swim as a group twice a week…just getting there was impossible on some days. It’s just too hot to expect very young children to say, “I’m in trouble…I’m thirsty…I’m going to faint…” Field trips have had to be canceled because the lakes are soupy and even closed, the temperature in the bus for hours is just too hot, and snakes are “on the lose” because of the drought.

With grateful thanks to a fantastic staff, we have solved most of our problems with quick thinking, fun substitutions and lots of on premises extras that have turned out to be a grand exchange. But it takes a dedicated staff to not only come up with the substitutions, but the energy in this heat to take charge and lead on…McDuff!

We have four more weeks of summer trips, and three trips have been planned…looking for something exciting for one more trip. I’m not thrilled about repeating a summer trip, so I’m looking for something new and sure and doable if the weather is back into the 100s. It’s a challenge, but I am sure we will rise to this occasion.

Planning summer -out of city-out of state- trips is always a challenge. We don’t want them too long, but there is really nothing exciting to do within a 120 mile radius…so we have often gone to St. Louis, Louisville, Nashville, to explore those cities, and it’s been enormously successful. The kids love the St. Louis Zoo, Bush Gardens, the Arch…Nashville’s Science Museum, Mammoth Cave, the Louisville Zoo, The Exotic Feline Rescue Center near Terre Haute.

What I would love to do, and I can’t find this…is a real train ride. The one in French Lick is as dull as it comes. I would also like to find a boat ride…but that has been limited to the Blue Springs Cave…might try that again this year. I would love to get the kids out on the Ohio…but finding a possibility has not been achieved yet.

Field trips at the Garden School are not meant to entertain as much as they are meant to teach. I want the learning and seeing and exploring new things to be the fun part. I want the questions children have to be their entertainment. So we plod on…

Hoping the end of the summer makes up for the beginning…

All my life as a child, I heard my father and his friends talk about the wonders of owning a restaurant. What they would buy as a building, the food they would serve, the wine, the clientele…how wonderful to “work for yourself.”  And no matter the conversation, the dreams, the ideas…it never materialized. It was too big to handle, after all, and too much risk – even for a man with a truck load of money and all the ideas possible.

I’ve thought a lot about why people dream, and others actually make dreams a reality, and I think it has to do with something my lawyer once said about me, “Judy, you don’t know that the things you do….you can’t do!!!!!!!”  Some people just don’t believe that a good idea should go to waste, while others are afraid of their dreams becoming a reality. My father never owned his restaurant, and I doubt he would be pleased to know that I own a restaurant license…it would be a matter of jealousy…but the difference between us is that I took the plunge and he didn’t.

I started my own business of “day care” when I was pregnant with my fourth child. It was a way of making enough money to supply a new furnace and Christmas for the kids.  I began to care for the two boys down the street before and after school in my home. In eight years, I was serving sixty-seven children on a weekly basis. I provided breakfast, lunch, preschool, after school snack, and a busy schedule of learning. In the summer they all loaded in the car, and I took them swimming.

When my youngest went to Kindergarten, I moved on to building a preschool for my parish, and then with my best friend, I built my present situation…a little school for little people called The Garden School.

For most female personalities, building a business means an active amount of talking – phone, Saturday mornings at the dog-nut house, visits, activities and pretty much your whole life. This talking is an important part of production because a lot of the talking is about goals, avenues to meet those goals, sharing experiences, commiserating, and working problems out. This means having a partner or someone equally interested in your business adventure. People choose partners for many reasons including compatibility, similar goals, similar work ethic, similar beliefs. People choose a partner on the grounds of honesty, and the belief that he or she is not going just quit – either at once, or worse, in stages.

But more than any other trait a good partner should have when creating a business from the ground up is a finely tuned work ethic.  A small business work ethic always says: “This is MY work for ME to do.”  Someone with a genuine work ethic rises to the occasion of daily chores, problems and necessities that make the business work…every day…seven days a week. A work ethic dictates that someone always be busy with improvements and additions that help build the business…that push it forward into excellence.  And what active people learn quickly about a small business is that it IS demanding every single day – not just when it’s convenient or when you want to. You don’t turn out the lights on Friday and then not show up again until Monday. A business that works or continues to thrive is a business owned by someone who really cares and is willing to not only say, “This is MY work for ME to do,” but also says through their work, “I am proud of what I am doing.”

In the child care business, there are a host of behind the scenes preparations for the business to run well. They include: writing — curriculum including some school texts, developing a website or blog so families moving into the area are attracted to your place first. There is the interior development of school policies, menus to make and  and food policies and food licenses to create, maintain and record. There are food records, buying and planning, and recording receipts. There are school handbooks, faculty handbooks, calendars, the never ending notes home, thank you notes and announcements meeting parent, state, and finally your own expectations.

There are parent interviews and enrolling new children, health forms, food forms, enrollment forms…and there is the constant hiring of teachers which means teacher training, developing pay scales, perks, and creating a work environment that makes people want to come to work. There is a constant organizing of teaching staff…and teaching,

In the daily running of the school, there are classes to teach, meals to create, hours to manage, plans for activities to create and carry out. There are summer trips to plan for and execute. There are summer expenses to manage. The year holds occasions like Grandparents’ Tea, school plays, Christmas programs, Holiday occasions, dances, sings, and picnics.

And in ordinary time there is the the feat of paying bills, issuing pay checks, managing accounts, there is the never ending shopping for supplies, toys, project materials, paper products, food, milk, and all the extras that make it count.

Then there is the cleaning, the carpet washing every week, the floors, closets, toys shelves, keeping the kitchen inspection ready. In our case there is the zoo room and remembering which animals require what food and extras and procuring all that – and doing that every single day without fail.

Then there is the garden, food garden, and landscaped garden, the watering, the feeding, the pruning, the purchasing…

It’s too much for one person to do well. It takes a staff. I’m grateful that our staff is as competent and as dependable as they are. It makes a school like ours work. But ultimately, there is a certain work load that is dependent on the owners, and this work is the never ending story.

Starting your own business and doing it well demands that It’s my job for me to do attitude and work ethic. Because when you pass the buck, to whom are you passing it? If you expect that someone is going to constantly rescue you from your work, you’re not meant for owning your own business. It’s not about vacations or huge pay checks or what the next perk is…it’s about my job for me to do for the survival of the business.

So as we turn the corner on this summer and gallop into the August stretch, it’s time to start working on the next season…the start of school…new students…new parents…rules to learn…then it will be time to buckle down for learning…then before long it will be time to work on the holidays…then the inclement weather…and these aren’t dreams talked about on a lazy Sunday…it’s daily work-filled reality if you own your own business.

This is a good article about the reduction of play and the increase of imaginations. It shouldn’t make sense because of the idea of play and all the groaning parents have made about fewer recesses and fewer “play time” in school. But that, apparently, is how it’s working.

A good article at: Imaginations More Active Despite Less Play Time, Study Shows

Education Week has a lot of great articles for students of all ages. It’s worth checking out.

I was reminded on Tuesday, on a very very hot day at the pool, how there is a clear division between “letting kids play in the water” and “teaching them to swim.”

Letting children play is a nice strategy for children who are not yet ready to put their heads under the water and try to swim. Letting kids “splash about” is the best way for them to discover water and how water can be easy, friendly, and enjoyable.

But when a child is going under the water and trying to keep him or herself up in the water, it’s time for the adult to step in and participate so that the child can easily make the transition from splashing about to really swimming.

I’ve been a swimmer for fifty-seven years. I learned by inching my way into the water until my brother and his friends decided to take me out to where the big boats were docked and throw me in. I knew enough to put two and two together and make my way back to the dock.  I know that there is a clear separation between those who can keep themselves up in the water and make their way to safety, and those who will sink and die. The whole concept of taking children swimming every summer is to put more kids on the “make your way to safety” than sink and die.

When you make the step toward swimming fun and exciting…a game…children respond well. The whole idea is to find a space in the swimming pool that is too deep for the child to touch, but shallow enough for the adult to be able to stand comfortably with head and shoulders above the water.

When children delight in standing on the side of the pool and jumping to an attending adult, they forget their fears, and simply engage in playing at jumping farther and farther to the adult and then tackling the huge task of swimming back to the wall where they can climb out and jump again. What they are not putting together is that in the shallow end, they can keep themselves up for three seconds, but while they are jumping to an adult, the swim from the adult to the wall is much farther than three seconds worth of swimming.

If the adult is as sneaky as this adult, the game begins with a five feet jump, and ends in a fifteen feet jump. There’s a big difference. For a child to swim five feet, he has to paddle about three seconds. For a child to swim fifteen feet, it’s more like fifteen seconds. There’s a big difference.

Once a child jumps to the adult and turns on his own to go back to the wall, the game is up, and he or she is really swimming. Next step….the diving board. If a child can hurl him or herself into space, and go down deep in the water…and come up and casually swim to the side of the pool…common…he or she is swimming FOR REAL! And that’s the way we do it at the Garden School.