Bulletin Board
Events, opportunities and resources for our Garden community.
Time for in-house families priority enrollment registration!
Crickets and Ladybugs
If you are planning on enrolling for next year, please register your for the 2026-2027 school year by January 9.
Submitting your registration will hold your child’s spot for the upcoming school year. A $100 non-refundable registration fee is required at the time of submission. This helps us reserve space and begin planning for a wonderful year ahead. We’re grateful to be part of your child’s learning journey!
Priority registration for in house families is open now through January 9.
In-House Priority Enrollment
For current and alum families, the admissions process is simple, register your student by January 9 to let us know you’d like a spot in
Winter Celebration
6:30-7:30 – Friday, December 12, 2025 at Issaquah Middle School. This family event features seasonal music and dancing featuring the children in each class.
Pajama Days!
December 15-19 children are invited to wear pajamas for a week of snuggly cozy fun.
Parent Education
Save the Date! January 27 at 7pm
Planning for Peace of Mind: A Parent’s Guide to Wills & Trusts
Parent Night Out
Parent’s Night Out Is Back! Saturday, January 31 | 5:00 PM | Big Block Brewery, Sammamish We’re kicking off the new year with a well-deserved
Oh, my! Tonight is the night! We hope to see you all at our Winter Celebration this evening at Issaquah Middle School at 6:30 PM. We will finish up by 7:30 PM, and everyone is welcome! Grandparents, relatives, friends and neighbors, siblings, and of course, Parents! We hope you enjoy this lifelong memory making event, celebrating the season of light, joy and twinkling gnomes, fairies and elves. We are excited to share the children’s dances and stories.
This week, we were all busy little elves, making and wrapping our family holiday gifts, decorating the courtyard windows with handprint and footprint reindeer, and our Bees’ “All About Me” reports. We have been enjoying singing songs of the season and reading stories about giving and sharing joy.
On Monday, we enjoyed a visit from our dear friend, Debby Smick, who was founder Bonnie’s co-teacher at The Garden for 35 years! Debby brought Belleamie’s original best friend, Chat-O to visit as well. Chat-O is the black cat who travels the world to experience different cultures. The Children’s Garden really is incomparable as a preschool. In our nearly 50 years of operation, we have only had 5 full time teachers, Bonnie, Debby, Donna, Brook and Cara.
All next week is Pajama Week! Wear ‘em if you got ‘em! Remember that we will still be going outside to play, (if the atmospheric river and windy conditions subside!) so bring or wear some outdoor shoes.
Happy Hanukkah! Monday starts this wonderful celebration of light.
See you this evening.
Ladybugs
How fun is our job to be able to spend time with these adorable littles during this twinkly time of year!? We were excited to have Sophie back from Japan to celebrate her birthday circle, and had fun exploring the new snow and ice sensory table.
Our sweet friend, Cari, accompanied her daughter to Charleston for her All America Team soccer game! We are so proud of our Garden grad Cate for making the All American Team! And so happy that Cari gets to see the game in person! We will miss her at the Winter Celebration tonight, though!
No school on Thursday, means that we won’t be handing over your kiddo’s Holiday family gifts until Tuesday. When you receive them, please don’t open them in the gazebo. Some families don’t want to see them until they open their gifts on Christmas Day, while others want to open them as soon as they get home. It’s all up to you, but please don’t share or tell about your gift on social media or in your class text chains, so as not to spoil the surprise for the parents who choose to wait. We know you will absolutely love them!
The Ladybugs are dancing as snowsprites tonight! Hope you can join us!
Crickets
We celebrated Lily’s 4th trip around the sun on Monday. We had fun wrapping our Holiday gifts for our parents to open. Lots of scotch tape was used in the process! The little elves on the front of the packages are saying “NO PEEKING!” Seriously, if you must open it before winter break, please don’t post about it or show it to the other parents.
We are so proud of these Crickets! They are doing two important performances this evening – a dance to welcome Father Christmas and a dramatic re-enactment of a favorite story of The Children’s Garden. We hope you can join us!
Honeybees
These Bees have completed their All About Me presentations, and our next reports will be all about family. Next week, we will send home a paper for the kids to work on over the holidays. We had a sweet treat with our final report- we saw Elli’s report where she illustrated a picture of her favorite book, which her mum, Alissa, read to the class at closing circle. 🥰
The Bees completed their holiday gifts for you and we know you are going to treasure them. Unlike the Bugs and Crickets, we display all the Honeybee gifts so that all the parents can see the range of ‘silliness’ in their portrayals.
The Honeybees are performing two dances this evening – a very fun story telling dance and a very complicated and fast moving dance! With the atmospheric river limiting a few family’s attendance this week, this evening will be the first time that we will all be doing it TOGETHER! Wish us luck and hope you can join us!
Mousehole
News From the Classroom
Ladybugs
Crickets
Honeybees
Gratitude Corner
The staff was served a delicious lunch on Tuesday, gifted to us from Claudia LaBarge, Sasha Williams, Holly Horn-Bradley, Alissa Roth and Ema Virdi. What a treat! We absolutely love what we do, we love working with each other, love working with your children and so love working on a collaborative team with you all. Thank you for the delicious treats. We can’t tell you how much it means to us.
We also want to thank Jessica Julius, who answered the call on Wednesday afternoon, when Emily was sick, to sit in a very quiet office with her little guy, Rory, to cover for Brin, so that Brin could be in the classroom with the kiddos.
Jonathan LaBarge and Mick Holsbeke worked hard throughout last weekend and especially Wednesday evening and into the wee hours of early Thursday morning, caring for our creek and sandbagging the grounds to keep the babbling brook within it’s banks.
So many current and alum preschool parents checked in with the school and with Donna, who also lives creekside, to make sure we were all safe and offering sandbag help, transportation, errand runs and meals! What an amazingly supportive and caring community we have here at The Children’s Garden!
Special shout out to Tom Nelson, alum Dad of four Garden grads, his youngest an Issy High Sr this year, for bringing the Father Christmas magic to our Winter Celebration this evening, Honeybee parents, Erica and Pete Aldassy, for filling our shoemaker shoes this year and Garden founder Bonnie Steussy and long time teacher Debby Smick for working with the Honeybee class this week on Troika dancing!
Thank you to all of our current and alum parents for being a part of OUR village, and for all that you do to support us as part of YOUR village for raising these amazing littles. GO TEAM!
Office Notes
News and reminders from the office.
Closure and Inclement Weather Policy
Your child’s safety and learning experience is paramount to us. See how, when and why we make the choice to alter our school schedule due
Tis the time of year when we keep a close watch on our beautiful babbling brook. With heavy rains in the forecast, we are currently on flood watch and taking preventative measures.
Garden dads — and creekside property owners — Mick and Jonathon spent the weekend clearing the culvert on school property of vegetation and sediment, and will continue to keep a watchful eye as the rains roll in. Thank you!
We will contact families before class begins if rising creek levels on the property prevent access to the school.
Thank you for your understanding as we move through the rhythms of the creek on the property during PNW winter weather.
Parent Portal for all Garden News and Information.
Looking for that bit of info or pictures from a past Gazette? View past issues of the Garden Gazette from this year in our Parent Portal.
Current Garden Families can visit our private password protected Parent Portal page on our Children’s Garden website using password 2526Garden!
Calendar
Please mark your calendar with these important dates.
December
- Friday, December 12, 6:30-7:30pm: Winter Celebration
- December 15-19 Pajama Days
- December 22-January 2: No School for Winter Break
January
- January 5: Back to school after Winter Break
- January: Coffee Talk Fire Engine Visit!
January 7 Crickets 10 am
January 9 Ladybugs 10 am
January 9 Honeybees 12:15 pm - January 9: 2026-2027 Priority Enrollment Registration for In-house families due
- January 19: No School in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- January 23: Children’s Garden Open House for prospective families
- January 27 at 7pm: Planning for Peace of Mind: A Parent’s Guide to Wills & Trusts presented by Honeybee parent Ema Virdi
- January 31 at 5pm: Parent Night Out at Big Block Brewing
Daily Class Schedule
Ladybugs
Tuesday and Thursday 8:15 – 11:15 am
Crickets
Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8:15 – 11:15 am
Honeybees
Monday-Thursday 12:15 – 3:15 pm
~ Poems~
School Poems
Part of our daily routine at The Garden is singing or saying a few of our traditional poems.
Find a printable version to our Closing Circle Song, and the poem “We Light This Candle” at the following links.