This week at the Garden School it’s going to be in the seventies, so long pants and short sleeved shirts are the best choice!

We are still collecting for the aged. Please think of them this week while you shop. A new shirt, a nightgown, a fuzzy pair of slippers, a new tooth brush, a pretty bow…all things taken for granted by us the mobile, and such a treat for someone confined at home.

On Thursday, we will be having a visit from the State Police to do a safety awareness day. Todd Ringle, an old friend, is coming with his men to treat the kids to all the police talk they can muster for the afternoon.

This week we will have a candy day. Either fudge or caramels will grace our tongues!

On Friday, we will have a stone soup day. Stone soup is a soup made from food brought by kids and mixed in a pot. Please remember these items must be store-bought and sealed.

In Kindergarten we will be introducing a new book called “It’s Halloween.” I hope the children love this book. There is much more reading and many more new words.

One of my distant acquaintances in Uganda runs an orphanage for 600 children. Over the years, because of the generosity of our parents, we have never taken advantage of our Scholastic dollars that we have earned by having book fairs. This week, I am spending $950.00 on books from Scholastic and we are sending them to Uganda compliments of the Garden School children. More about this later!

Have a great week!

Going to be a busy week! We will be starting our footie, sock and slipper collection for the nursing homes this week. So far, we have collected skin wash, shampoo, and many other wonderful products we are sure will delight the elderly.

This week on Monday, our graduate will be selling popcorn at the GS after school. Please plan to support our young troops!

On Wednesday, we will make popcorn balls for the kids…we oopsed on Friday with Fudge Day, so we will include that this Friday after the last field trip because it’s a candy kind of month!

On Thursday, we will be going to the Lollipop Concert with the Evansville Philharmonic. This is a really fun excursion. Children need to wear their school uniform shirts…we will be distributing their red hoodies that day for new kids…

We have been listening to the music that will be played at the Lollipop Concert. This year it is Peter and the Wolf. The kids are already following the music.

On Friday, we will be going to the Goebel’s Farm. This is a new farm for us. We will be taking the bus early…about 8:30. We will return after a pumpkin hunt, a hay ride etc. for a pizza party at school. School shirts and red hoodies on Friday too.

Cost for each field trip is $10.00.

This week we are back in the classroom working on Frog, Dog and Hog. The children are slowly associating the little laminated words with the words in their story. Every child is putting this together for him or herself. Word wall today along with reading aloud.

We are working on folk songs this year in school. We are singing “If I Had a Hammer” and “I Love the Forests” and a little tongue twister about a Tree Frog and one more improvised song called “Farmer Brown.”

We have gone to a clean plate club with lunch. Children, especially new children, are in the “habit” of declining a meal. It’s not about hunger or about want, it’s about habit. We are trying to break the habit of not eating by making eating a positive activity.

Our book fair continues. Please take a look at the books and consider Christmas is coming and books make a gift that lasts forever. We are trying to cross the $1000.00 mark this year.

Our Beautiful Baby Contest is really about families. It’s about demonstrating to kids that we all start out as Mommy’s and Daddy’s little dream boat, and slowly move away from that image into an image of “I can do things all by myself.” We add the family trees, and learn our names, addresses and phone numbers and birth days, and then move from the family theme into “I’m part of the great world that is made of nature and has Man’s influence.” At the end of the contest, we will use the pennies to buy a toy. This is a contest that is a first step to “We helped to do this…”

Please remember that The Garden School is halfway between your house and the big industrial school house. We make that first step less than painful…and hopefully our few years at the GS will help children step up to the plate with all the moxie and the confidence they need to be big hitters in school.

Grandparents’ Tea is on Friday at 2:00. Singing will begin at 2:00 and will be followed by gifts and then refreshments. Dismissal follows the refreshments. All children MUST have an adult guest.

For all you parents, grandparents, friends, relatives and “far aways,” we have a new on line book fair from Scholastic we are starting this week to coincide with our in school book fair which we have set up in the reading room. If you would like to buy a book for a special child and have it sent to our school, you can do that on line. Just go to this site  

http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/thegardenschool

and follow the directions. It’s fun, it’s easy, and it benefits our school. Every year we have two book fairs, and we try to get over $1000.00 in sales. We have collected Scholastic Dollars for years and are at a point where we need to do something about cashing them in. We thought about using our Scholastic Dollars to fund a book donation to an orphanage in Africa, but the postage would be incredible.

There are also some resource equipment available through Scholastic that would be nice for the school. Why don’t you tell us what you think we need to do.

Our sale runs through next Friday, September 28.  Seeyaonline!

It’s a busy week again! We will be having school Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Spelling test on Wednesday! Thursday is our Friday…with Golden Bead and Knowledge Bee and Friday we are going on a field trip to Owensboro. Leaving at 8:30 and returning at 1:00.

This week begins our “Beautiful Baby Contest.” Your child’s baby picture has a number which will be matched with a numbered jar. Voting is done by putting a penny into the jar for the child you think is most beautiful. Any currency is acceptable! The contest will go through Grandparents’ Tea on the last Friday of September. The child with the greatest number of cents wins! Proceeds go towards a splendid new toy!

We have a new book this week in reading. We have twelve new reading words. I hope the children love this. It’s much harder than the last book, but I am sure the children will catch on.

Pre-K children will be working on making a letter caterpillar!

In Art, we will be working on all kinds of landscapes.

The weather is going to be cooler this week. Please use discretion when sending children to school in clothing that will not be comfortable!

Enjoy your week!

This is a very busy month at the Garden School. Starting tomorrow, we will have a contest for learning our full names, our parents’ full names, our addresses, our phone numbers and our birth dates. See who can learn first, get it right and remember it! This is a significant safety issue.

We are focusing on the family this month. We are learning about families. We will talk about our families and who makes our families.

Kindergarten children will get a new book this week: Frog on Log. We are looking at the OG words. Please help your child read this book and learn the rhyming words for a spelling test on Thursday.

Clay will be sent home with Kindergarten children who need help strengthening hands. This is a tool and a toy. This clay must stay in the bag. Directions will be sent with the clay.

As we increase our words from our readers, your child will be able to make many new sentences. We will work on these sentences in the classroom as well, and prizes will be given out for the best and brightest sentences. There is a number on the bag of laminated words in your child’s work bag that has a number on it. That number is the number of words your child should have in the zipped bag. Please take time to count these words every so often. A broken tool is a broken tool. We want our things in perfectly neat, usable working order! It makes a splendid work ethic.

In Music, we will be working on folk songs and American Songs this month.

We hope to get a field trip to a natural dairy this month. Working on that now!

This month we will be welcoming three guests to speak with the children about the splendid things they do.

At the end of the month, we will have a book fair and Grandparents’ Tea.

Write to you next week!

This week in our reading class, we will be exploring the word “at.”  What can WE do with the word “at?”  Reading, like any project for very young children, needs to be active and interesting enough for children to want to explore it, tame the wild and unmanageable thing that it seems to be, and come to terms with it. Reading is a huge mountain to climb, and one can either climb it by being dragged over rough spots and hurting all the way, unsure, afraid of any cliffs or crags, or one can approach the mountain with the same youthful eye that brave children scan the playground. Reading, after all, is an adventure. The equipment is there, packing it correctly, using it correctly is the same discipline of any active activity.  A careful but aggressive climb into this “sport of reading” is what we will be doing at the Garden School this year. So today, and most of this week, we will be hiking the foothills of reading with making words with “at.” Nope, it’s not the convention…it’s a brand new approach. It’s an “I can do this all by myself” approach to one of the things that either makes or breaks a child’s education. Sooo…our equipment has been gathered, we have instructions about keeping our equipment in good order, we will get our climbing instructions today…and up we go to “at” and all that “at” can be…

This will be an enormously busy week at the GS. We will be finishing the changes at the school on Monday and Thursday. On Tuesday, we will be going to the pool, and on Wednesday, we will be “pooling” it as well, and parents are welcome to come. There will be a picnic lunch…the same lunch our kids have been enjoying all summer. Come swim, lunch, and have a great day with your kids!

On Friday, we will be having our first Parent Orientation at school at 2:00. All children not returning to the Garden School must be picked up by 1:00. This allows us to have a final lunch and good by time that is not over shadowed by the business of the orientation.

The orientation is a good way for parents to meet teachers, ask questions, meet one another, see all our changes and understand just how much we enjoy our teaching reputation. There will be about a half hour of informational exchange, and a time for questions. Then we will enjoy Miss Lisa’s incredible cookies and brownies.

School will dismiss after the refreshment time about 3:30.

Parents who cannot come will be asked to meet with Miss Judy about what they have missed.

Busy week!

This week, we will be swimming on Tuesday and Wednesday, and going to a movie on Friday. It will be in the mid to high nineties all week.

Please notice the new arrangements in the building. Our classrooms are taking shape, and the science stuff is coming out of storage boxes after nearly a year and going back up on new shelves.

We have new benches for toys, and dress up got a hat rack at last.

We are still making changes, and everyone is excited about the space and the new paint and the new furniture.

We are starting off the school year with thirty-nine kids which is kind of a record. Our new classes are STUFFED!

Please make space on your calendar for Orientation on August 10th at 2:00!