Garden Gazette April 7, 2023

News, pictures and videos from the classrooms.

Oh! My goodness! The April Fools Shenanigans waited around until Monday morning to greet us all with an inch of snow on the playground and courtyard! It was soooo cold all day, even though the sun showed up a few times in the afternoon, it still didn’t warm us up. Not many of us bring hand warmers or wear our long underwear anymore, so we used the movement room as an extra space to stay warm.

We hope you all had fun at the All-School Egg Hunt last weekend! The staff was so pleased with the turnout and the fact that we could actually have an Egg Hunt for the first time in 4 years! Thank you to Thea for being our beloved Bunny and to our alum, Margot, for being our beloved junior Bunny! Thank you to all of you who helped the bunny before the hunt.

Each Bug, Bee and Cricket is having their individual time with Brin to work on their biographies for the Art Show. Can you believe the Art Show is the first week back after break next week?! It kind of snuck up on all of us! The teachers are working around the clock to get all of the art pieces prepared, as well as working on our dances. We want to send a huge thank you to Jasmine Walton for helping out the staff by framing and matting all of our art pieces for our upcoming Art show. What a huge support! Thank you so much Jazz! Thursday, April 20^th at Issaquah Middle School. We are looking for an Art Show committee to help us get into the school an hour early and hang the several pieces of art from each of our 56 students. Please check in with Brin in the office to sign up. We could use about 9 or 10 people – and you could reserve front row seats for the movement and dance portion of the show.

We hope you all have a fantastic reset and relaxing Spring Break next week! When we return, the Bugs have 16 school days left, the Crickets have 22, and the Bees have 31! In that time, we have 1 Art Show, 1 Live Auction, 1 Silent Auction, 3 Butterfly Teas, 3 Last Classes and 1 Honeybee Graduation. Doesn’t it feel like we were just getting ready for our Apple Fest?

Read on for Class News:

Ladybugs

Well, we were happy to  see Luke and Freddie and Theo back on Tuesday after a long time away, but we missed Johannes, Julius, Audrey and Oliver! We are finishing up our Art Show projects and practicing our dancing. We reported our news and had lots of fun and giggles playing together.

Ladybug families, it is happening! Our little parallel players of the fall are entering the classroom and immediately looking for friends, giggling together and inviting others to play. We love to see it!

Crickets

Oh! My goodness! The April Fools Shenanigans waited around until Monday morning to greet us all with an inch of snow on the playground and courtyard! The Crickets had fun making snowballs and sliding down a VERY quick slide! We were all feeling the cold, though – most of us don’t bring our hand warmers anymore, or wear our long johns – so, we cut our outside time short and went in for circle at 10.

At circle, we talked about the new month that we are in and Olivia brought in an awesome “Z” sound basket! We also read the classic, “The Country Bunny”. Such a sweet Easter Bunny story. The children all took turns coming up to the book and touching the tiny golden shoes that are only given to the bravest, kindest and swiftest bunny.

Today, we had our alphabet party to celebrate all the letters of the alphabet! At The Garden, we will find every reason to celebrate and have a good time!

Cricket families, it is happening! Our Ladybug parallel play students are now using strong voices to stand up for themselves. They are asking their friends to share, taking turns, problem solving, and one student stood at the base of the slide on the very slippery snowy day, after being bumped into a few times, and sang loudly, “Please stop! I don’t like that! I’m feeling uncomfortable, I need more space!! Not around me, don’t take it personally, it’s just a boundary, just a boundary!”

Honeybees

The Honeybees are working on a special project that we hope to have finished by the Art Show. Each child is being called in from the playground or inside activity to work on their individual piece, as well as going to Brin’s office to work with her on their biographies.

On Monday, we celebrated our friend, Wyatt, as he turned 5 over the weekend! On Tuesday, we celebrated Ava, on herl 5^th birthday! On the first day back after break, we will be celebrating our friend, Cassie, as she turns 5! Although Allie turns 5 in a few months, we already celebrated her half birthday – so, our Honeybee Birthday circles will be officially done for this school year!

Elliot was sick and unable to make our World’s Fair last week, but he still did an amazing job presenting his report on China on Monday! He had lots of fun pictures from his dad’s visit to China and handed out delicious shortbread cheese cookies. Thank you, Elliot! Every World Culture Report was absolutely wonderful, and we truly feel as if we have travelled around the world. Our Bees should be so proud of themselves. What a great group of presenters! Thank you to all our Bee parents who helped their students assemble their boards, assist them handing out their treats, and worked with the kids to practice their presentations. What an amazing class!

As we learn our dances for our Spring Art Show, we are so enjoying ourselves. The students are coming up with some amazing dance moves and are having fun showing them off. We have a few students who are pretty shy, and we realize that we are pushing them a bit, so we appreciate all the help and support that you can give us at home. Have regular dance parties, show them some of your moves, feel free to be silly, and talk to them about how wonderful their moves are!!

Honeybee parents, it is happening! Our Ladybug parallel play students started to use their voices to advocate for themselves in the Cricket class, and as it happens every spring, our Honeybee students are advocating for their classmates, speaking up when they see something wrong, and becoming mature citizens of our Garden Community. At one of our birthday circles, we talked about things that they can do as a 5 year old that they didn’t know how to do before, and they all talked about ‘speaking up’ and helping their friends and their class. We love it!!