Well, the kids had a short week, but the staff is having a long week! Thursday was a  Parent Teacher Conference planning day, one of our favorite days of the year, when we all get to discuss with love and appreciation, and each of our own point of view, each of our 55 kiddos, amongst all of the staff that interacts with them each day. We are amazed as this day routinely stretches to 7 or 8 pm each year, as we can’t stop talking about these children that we are so invested in. 

Today we started our Staff In Service Session, and it will continue through tomorrow morning, as we cover all of our talking points, curriculum themes and plans. 

We loved celebrating Cara’s birthday this week and she was thrilled beyond her usual joyful self, with all of the greetings, well wishes, treats and thoughtful gifts. Cara thanks you all so much for remembering her birthday. What a treat to celebrate with 55 little ones! Thank you tons!

We are eagerly anticipating a “High Holy Day” here at The Children’s Garden, our annual Leprechaun Days are almost here! We hold two events every year during class time where the students can bring a special guest to spend an hour or so with them. Typically, we have one parent attend one event and the other parent attend the other eventThe first of these is “Leprechaun Day”, and the second is “Butterfly Tea”. Butterfly Teas have a sharing circle where the children do songs and recitations and then a tea party on the deck and the playground. The children are invited to wear special occasion clothes and the adult guests are invited to wear “Tea Party” clothes. Hats and fancy outfits are encouraged! Leprechaun Day has a sharing day where the children do ‘tricks’ with their special guest, and then head out to the playground to search for Leprechaun’s gold! There’s no dress code for this event, but we hope everyone has a bit of green on to fend off those pesky Leprechauns!. The tricks that are performed can be as simple as telling a joke, giving a ‘helicopter’ ride, or having the child run up to the adult and do a flip. We’ve had parents set up a magic act, a card trick, or a dance to a favorite song. Leprechaun Days this year are Monday the 16th for Crickets, and Tuesday the 17th for Bugs and Bees. Start practicing your fun tricks! 

Our founder, Bonnie, shared an article with The Garden staff that we would love to share with you. It’s a wonderful reminder of what is most important in the preschool classroom, and why The Children’s Garden’s curriculum focuses on conversing with the students, not talking down to them, finding eyes, and working so much on social emotional skills. You can read the article here. 

Ladybugs

We just had one day with these littles this week, but we got a lot done! We had each student draw their self portrait to get ready for our parent teacher conferences, and the teachers worked with each child on their assessments. We had a fun circle with Claudia and Eri as they read a story called “Arlo Needs Glasses”, and then had fun glasses for each of the kids to decorate with stickers and adorable eyeglasses with no lenses to take home at the end of class. The story book taught us all that some glasses are tools, like Beck’s, Cari’s, Cara’s and Sophies, while other glasses are toys, like the ones that we decorated and have in our dress up box. What a fun learning experience! Thank you Claudia and Eri! We finished the day with a celebration of our friend Brooks, turning 3 in just a few days. Happy birthday, Brooks! We sure loved watching your smile as you walked with your mum around the sun 3 times to bang the drum!!

Start working on your Leprechaun Day Tricks! Leprechaun Day is fast approaching and we love to see the tricks that the students do with their special adult guests. These tricks can range from doing a dance move, swinging the student up on the shoulders, an airplane ride, or telling a joke. Leprechaun Day is March 17th, the first hour of class.

Crickets

How fun to welcome these little Crickets back to school on Monday! We heard about such wonderful adventures and events! (We also understand that a lot of those events did not really happen, but it is very fun to hear all of their news!)

We celebrated our sweet friend, Rhett’s 4th birthday! How fun to watch Rhett walk around the sun 4 times. 

We continued the kids drawing their self portraits and doing assessments for our upcoming Parent Teacher Conferences. 

We worked on some stamper books, based on our study of “The Mitten” folk tale, and we started doing more focused recitations at circle time. We love to see our Crickets grow their confidence to stand in front of their peers at circle and tell us their name, or tell us their Mitten story. We also like to check in with each student to stand up and do the opening circle poem of intention. It is AmaZing! To see their confidence and comfort level grow. 

On Wednesday, we celebrated Lunar New Year with Theo’s family. Henry came in to share with us so much fun information about Chinese New Year. Gung Hay Fat Choi! Welcome to the year of the Horse! How fun! Thank you Bi Family!

In the next month or so, we will be sending home information about helping your cricket prepare an “All about Me” report. This is to continue to grow their confidence and comfort level and getting used to presenting a ‘report’ about themselves! We are all excited to learn about each of our crickets and this is a wonderful exercise to have the crickets practice making a presentation in front of their peers. 

We had a wonderful circle talking about how “Words Can Hurt”  Can you use a bandaid to help a hurt by words? No. Be very careful with your words. It was a wonderful circle and we loved seeing the empathy and caring in our Crickets. 

Honeybees

We had some more wonderful animal reports this week, and have got to say how impressed we are with the increased focus of the audience, and the improved confidence of our presenters. What an amazing ‘next step’ of our students building their confidence at circle in front of their peers. 

We had a wonderful celebration of our dear friend, Sana, on Monday, as she had a birthday circle for her 5th trip around the sun.  How sweet to hear all of her classmates discuss what she is great at, what they like to do with her on the playground, and what they think she might be when she gets older. It is so fun to hear how much our Honeybees really have gotten to ‘know’ their classmates. Happy 5th birthday, Sana! 

On Wednesday, we celebrated Madison’s 5 ½ year birthday! Can you believe these kiddos will be turning 6 in the next year! Where does the time go? 

We started our assessments of these amazing Bees and had fun working with them on their self portraits and learning about their strengths and things to work on. Their Parent Teacher conferences are not for another month or so, but we are assessing and working with them on what skills they have mastered and what skills they can practice more.  

We finally finished our 5 page stories! With staff illnesses and student illnesses, these took longer than we thought. We are happy that we will be able to share their fun stories with you at conferences.

Have a great weekend!