~ Bulletin Board ~
Events, opportunities and resources for our Garden community.
Valentines Day
Valentine’s Day is a special day here at The Garden! Everyone gets to come to school in their jammies and bring Valentines for each of their classmates!
As in all things Garden, we love the children to have hands on experiences and so encourage children to create their own valentines.
Keep them as simple or as creative as you like.
Each child will have a large personal Valentine envelope that they have been decorating, hanging on the wall along the brick path. Before entering the classroom on the day of your Valentine’s celebration, please help your child ‘mail’ their valentines into each envelope. Please make sure that there is a valentine for each child in the class. There will be envelopes for the staff as well.
Lost your pictures? No problem! Download and print your child’s class pictures below.
Save the Date
Movie Night at Teacher Donna’s
Teacher Donna and Cara will be hosting
Movie Night
March 9, 2023 from 5-7 pm
at Donna’s house
Look for a text and email next week with sign up information.
Developmental/Behavioral Q&A Session
As many of you know, The Children’s Garden School is formally named Issaquah Valley Family Education. Parent education through parenting classes and workshops is a core component of our school. We are so lucky to have an amazing resource in Honeybee Declan’s mom, Jennifer Hannon.
Jennifer is a pediatric nurse practitioner specializing in the needs of children’s mental health, concerning behaviors, and neurodevelopmental disorders, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, anxiety, and depression.
She has offered to host a Q&A session for interested Cricket and Honeybee parents.
We will reach out to families to survey meeting formats and date.
~ Mousehole ~
News, pictures and videos from the classrooms.
Can you believe we are on the 10th of February already? We warned you that it would go fast! Our students are prepped and ready for our Valentines Day celebrations on Monday and Tuesday, with envelopes decorated and ready to hold all their classmates’ greetings. Feel free to wear some cozy pajamas on Monday (Crickets) and Tuesday (Bugs and Bees) to make our celebration extra fun!
Crickets and Bees, we’ve been having some rainy days and lots of wet coats, gloves, and hats. If you wouldn’t mind sending a bag on wet and muddy days to put coats and rain pants, along with hats and gloves, it will help to keep your backpacks dry.
Read on for Class News:
Ladybugs
Oh! What a fun day we had on Tuesday! Poor Teacher Cara stayed home with a hurt back, but Brook subbed for us. We acted out “Hey Diddle Diddle” and all the Bugs learned how to play the ‘air fiddle’! You should have seen the circle dissipate when we recited about the dish running away with the spoon! Luckily they all listened to us when we told them to come back to circle! :0)
On Thursday, we celebrated Theo and Freddie’s birthday! How fun! We got a little glimpse into Carrie’s daily routine as we watched the twins circle around the sun, double speed, two different directions, and back and forth! They did great and everyone at circle had a smile!
Next Tuesday, bring your Valentines and help your Ladybug ‘mail’ them before class time. The envelopes will be hanging along the brick path on the Movement Room wall. Come in cozy pajamas and bring a labelled stuffed animal if you would like.
Crickets
The Crickets started the week off acting out “The Three Billy Goats Gruff”. How fun to watch our grumpy trolls telling our Billy goats to “Be Off with You!”. We read our last few Stamper books about the Billy goats and had fun working on a seasonal take home art piece.
We had fun reading other versions of The Three Billy Goats all week. A favorite of our Crickets was “Three Billy Goats Fluff” where Mama Billy Goat knit booties for her three kids so that they didn’t make so much noise crossing the bridge and upsetting the troll who was trying to sleep!
On Wednesday, we completed our take home Valentine project. We just love these little ones and their photographs of pure joy holding heart shaped balloons are adorable. Hope you enjoy them.
Next Monday, the Crickets are invited to come to school in cozy pajamas and bring a labelled stuffy if you would like. Please help your child ‘mail’ their valentines before class, in the envelopes along the brick path. We hope you have fun this weekend crafting your valentines. We can’t wait to see them!
Honeybees
We started the week with all our Honeybees together on the playground. The kids enjoyed being in a large group again, and we had everyone present! The rain came down hard on Tuesday! We sent home some very wet kids!
It was so fun acting out our Groundhog poem on Monday. With two smaller circles, we got through everyone who got the poem last Thursday. The Honeybees had fun poking their head out and seeing their shadow.
We heard our last Community Helper presentation, and we started in on our Black History Month special person reports, hearing about George Washington Carver and Michelle Obama on Monday, Rosa Parks, Chef Edna Lewis, and Astronaut Mae Jemison on Tuesday, Misty Copeland, Eowyn’s Uncle Larry who is a Naval Commander, and Jackie Robinson on Wednesday, and finishing out the week with reports on Wendell Oliver Scott, Allie’s aunt Stephanie, an airplane pilot, and Mayara dos Santos, Hudson’s babysitter. We can’t wait to hear the rest of the reports on African Americans that inspire our Honeybees.
Thank you for your help with these reports. In just a few weeks, we will be sending home the information on preparing our Honeybee World Culture Reports. Each child will choose a country to do a report on – it can be a country that they have visited, a country that a family member has gone to, where Grandma or Grandpa are from, or a country that they want to visit someday.
On Wednesday, we had Sandra Winters helping us out in the classroom. Sandra works with Donna’s husband, John, at Edward Jones, and the company encourages their employees to do a day of community service. Sandra chose to help out at The Children’s Garden, and we were happy to have her. The kids enjoyed decorating their Valentine envelopes with her and she was absolutely charmed by all of the Honeybees. She repeatedly told the staff that the kids were so bright, so well-mannered, so comfortable in coming up to introduce themselves, so kind, and we couldn’t agree more!
The Honeybees learned a new sight word this week, LOVE! It was fun to watch them with their ‘pom poms’, Give me an L! Give me an O! Give me a V! and give me an E! We then got busy writing out “I LOVE ____” sentences. Such a sweet activity for the season.
We finished out the week with a wonderful birthday circle for our friend, Eowyn! Her 5th trip around the sun was celebrated in style with lovely wishes from all of the Bees. Happy birthday Eowyn! We sure love you!
Honeybee Valentine’s day is Tuesday. Please help the students ‘mail’ their beautiful valentines before class in the envelopes along the brick path. The Bees are invited to wear some cozy pajamas and bring a favorite stuffed animal, (labelled, please) for a fun pajama day!
Enjoy the weekend!
Ladybugs
Crickets
Honeybees
~ Office Notes~
Celebrating Black History Month
The Children’s Garden is proud to celebrate Black History month in thoughtful, age appropriate ways. Our Curriculum page has examples of how we fold Black History Month into our curriculum and links for further information on talking to children about Black History month, race, or simply how to find more great books.
Families are invited up to our office to check our wonderful collection of books that explore black history, skin color, and stories revolving around black lives.
Please stop in, snuggle up and read some of these wonderful stories!
Children’s Garden Auction 2023
The theme for this year’s auction is 1977! In celebration of the inaugural year of the Garden, we’re throwing it back and boogying down. Get ready to break out your grooviest ‘70s threads and Let’s Party Like It’s 1977!
Get donation forms and information and fundraising details on our Auction page.
Honeybee
Parent Teacher Conferences
Monday
March 20 During Class via Zoom
(No school for Honeybees this day)
Ladybug
Parent Teacher Conferences
Tuesday
March 21 During Class via Zoom
(No school for Ladybugs this day)
Cricket
Parent Teacher Conferences
Wednesday
March 22 During Class via Zoom
(No school for Crickets this day)
~ Upcoming Events~
Please mark your calendar with these important dates.
Month at a glance
February
February 13 – Valentine’s Day Cricket Class
February 14 – Valentine’s Day Ladybug and Honeybee classes
February 20-24 Second Winter Break. No School for students
February 27 – Black, white and zebra stipes! Exploring color contrast in the Honeybee and Cricket classes.
February 28 – Black, white and zebra stipes! Exploring color contrast in the Ladybug class.
March
March 1 – Conference Planning. No School for Students
March 16 – Leprechaun Day. A You and Me day in the Ladybug and Honeybee classes.
March 16 – Leprechaun Day. A You and Me day in the Cricket class.
March 20 – Honeybee Conferences during class time. No School for Honeybees
March 21 – Ladybug Conferences during class time. No School for Ladybugs
March 22 – Cricket Conferences during class time. No school for Crickets
Daily Class Schedule
Ladybugs
Tuesday and Thursday 8:15 – 10:45 am
Crickets
Monday, Wednesday and Friday 8:15 – 11:15 am
Honeybees
Monday-Thursday 12:15 – 3:15 pm
~ Quick Links~
Quick access to informative Garden pages.
Health and Wellness
What are the protocols for a stuffy nose?
Please view our Health and Wellness page for our health safety practices and protocols for the 2022-2023 school year.
Curriculum
Explore our Curriculum page for the foundational elements of our programming to see how we integrate social skills, literacy and math readiness, science, cultural enrichment, and the creative arts in an emergent, play-based environment in our unique natural setting.
Closure and Inclement Weather
With winter weather upon us, you can view our Closure and Inclement Weather page for policy information and pick up a hard copy from the bulletin board.
While we monitor conditions at the school, please note our families live across a broad geographical area and conditions in your neighborhood or on your route to/from school may differ from that at The Children’s Garden. If you are concerned that it is not safe for you or your child to be on the road, please do not hesitate to stay home.
