~ Bulletin Board ~
Events, opportunities and resources for our Garden community.
March and ride in the Issaquah
4th of July Parade
Don your festive red white and blue wear, decorate those strollers, wagons and bikes and bring some candy to toss to spectators along our parade route.
Meet our group in line from 10:30-10:50 a.m. on Tuesday, July 4th, just past the parade table located at the corner of Front St. N and NE Dogwood St.
Summer Communications for the 2023-2024 school year
As say goodbye to this year, we are already gearing up for next year.
Look for communications from the school in the form of monthly Garden Gazettes in July and August before we resume our weekly Garden Gazette’s in September.
While we will not be on campus for much of the summer, we continue to monitor our phones, emails and texts. Please reach out as needed.
~ Mousehole ~
News, pictures and videos from the classrooms.
What a wonderful last week of the 2022-2023 school year! The weather was beautiful and the kids were wound up tight! We saw lots of giggles, squeals and emotions as they all realized that the end of the school year was here. Make sure that you spend some time with your child to discuss their emotions and help them express their feelings, as well as brainstorm ideas and plan to help them (and you) feel better about moving on. Schedule some play dates, arrange a dinner party with another family, plan a camping trip with a few families, and have fun!
We had our end of year Board party and induction of our new Board members on Thursday evening at Erin and Tommy Carpinito’s home. What a lovely gathering to celebrate all that this board of trustees has accomplished and helped the school move forward, and to welcome the new Board members to our program. Thank you to Ali Marcus, Stephanie Cryer, Ellie Vertrees, Brian Hannon, Jasmine Dailida and Thais McCoy for all that you have done for The Children’s Garden, and thank you to Marissa Wain, Taylor Phillips, Sara Winters, Leah Julius and Claudia LaBarge and Mash Gaud for stepping up to join our board for the 2023-2024 school year! Thank you also to Erin and Tommy Carpinito for hosting such a lovely evening.
Have an amazing summer, Gardeners! We love you!
Ladybugs
What a lovely last week with our ladybugs. We sure love these kiddos and can’t wait to see you all in Cricket class next year! We said goodbye to Freddie and Theo who won’t be joining us next year but hope that they come back and visit us and keep us up to date on all of the amazing things that they are up to! Hope you have some wonderful summer play dates and have lots of family time and lots of adventures!
Crickets
Our sweet Crickets celebrated our friend, James’ 5th trip around the sun on Monday and had some fun creek time, looking for gems! We finished up some final details on our last day of school video and wrote our names one more time to see how much we’ve grown over the school year! With full attendance on Monday, we sent home all of the belongings that gathered in our cubbies over the past 10 months.
We know that Finn won’t be joining us next year as a Honeybee, but we hope he comes back and visits us and keeps us up to date on all of the amazing things that he is up to! Hope you all have some wonderful summer play dates and we can’t wait to see you in the fall as a Honeybee!
Honeybees
We have had such a wonderful final week with our Honeybees. We celebrated our friend, Leah’s 6th trip around the sun on Monday and made some lovely pictures for our sweet Gibson Ek intern, Lilly, to finalize her time with us. We will be attending her final presentation next week at Gibson Ek with her family and her advisors to report on her wonderful spirit, her enthusiasm to jump in and her great “tire swing pushing” for our students.
Our Bees made a fun and loving gift for our dads for Father’s Day. We hope you all enjoy them as much as we enjoyed helping them to make them. We finished our preparations for our Graduation Ceremony and had some fun circle discussions, checking in on each other’s feelings and talking about fun memories of the past school year.
Today, we had our beautiful graduation ceremony. Aren’t you all so proud of your Garden alum student? We sure are. We have seen such growth in these kids, whether they were here for all 3 years of just this past year. We have seen such community building in the parents of this class – from Ladybug hikes during class time, to Wednesday PCC pizza lunches in the Cricket class, to carpools, trading babysitting and drop off and pick-ups. Even the simplest gesture of having you and your child wait with another child in the gazebo if their ride is running late. So lovely. Not only have your children grown and developed their social emotional skills, but you, our parents, have grown as well! You’ve challenged yourself to take leadership roles – you have worked through sticky situations when your kids were struggling to use their best friendship skills – and you have made some sweet friendships. This little preschool is a great launching pad for you parents as well as our students. Many of our alum parents have been inspired by their time at The Garden, to work on the boards of other non-profits, chair auctions, start up or be a trustee of the Issaquah Schools Foundation, head up committees, art docents, PTA at elementary schools or be a room parent for their child’s class.
We love you all and are so grateful that you have entrusted your most prized possession to us over this last very brief moment in time. Please come back and visit us often. Call us in the new school year to set up big kid helper times. Come visit us at Homecoming, auction, and any other event that is open to alums! We love you and want you to know that your roots are deep in The Garden!
Have a great summer!
~ Gratitude Corner ~
We love our community and are so grateful and humbled by the support and love you so generously give! Thank you!
We are so grateful for:
our Garden Families, who have entrusted their children to our care and supported our program.
our Board, who have helped the staff to keep the program rolling along smoothly and always working to improve our school.
our staff, who absolutely love their jobs, love this program and the community, and love working with each other.
our location – how blessed are we to have a school in such a beautiful setting – forest of old growth trees, nestled in next to a babbling creek, and a spacious playground to run and play, as well as a charming classroom, filled with warmth and love.
and our program – we are grateful to Bonnie for founding such an amazing community building program, based on mutual respect and honoring individuality, celebrating art, movement and the importance of play, in building social emotional skills.
We are so grateful!
~ From the Board~
The Garden Needs Your Help!
Here at the Children’s Garden we are so lucky to be a part of such a nurturing environment where our children are learning and growing every day, and our tireless teachers contribute their heart and souls. As parents and families of our students, we know that each one of you plays a vital part in weaving together the fabric of this community. We are pleased to be able to offer so many varied ways for you to join us in building these bonds together.
Today we want to announce that we are seeking a new Board Treasurer to join our Board of Directors’ leadership team in July of 2023. Every year, we have new board members join as others complete their service. This year, our dedicated Treasurer is moving on, and it is crucial that we find someone to fill this very important role for our community.
The key activities of the Treasurer include:
- Work with Brin and our bookkeeper every month (about mid-month) to produce monthly reports/analysis to the board;
- Lead the annual budgeting process between February and June;
- Provide insight and guidance to the Board throughout your term as we work through strategic assessments and decisions about program and policies.
The ideal Treasurer has bookkeeping and accounting experience, proficiency with accounting software and Excel, and is a detailed and accurate project manager. They can investigate and analyze specifics as well as link it to the bigger picture for the larger leadership team.
This is an open call to our community and we are very much looking forward to hearing from you and brainstorming or answering your questions.
Board service is so much more than the donation of your time and professional expertise; it’s an opportunity to connect and share in the Garden experience in a unique and special way. Our board terms are three years long, in order to provide as much stability and effectiveness for the program as possible.
If you are interested in joining the Board as Treasurer, or if you have any questions about the position, please do not hesitate to reach out by responding to this email or emailing our board President, Erika White, directly at helloerikawhite@gmail.com.
Thank you for your consideration of serving The Children’s Garden in this meaningful way.
~ Office Notes~
Honeybee World Culture Fair Thursday, March 30 at 3 pm
Mark your calendars Honeybee families and join us for a tour of the world as our Bees show their World Culture Report boards and answer questions.
Bring Your Eggs Next Week!
Thank you to everyone who signed up to join us at our
Spring Egg Hunt
Saturday, April 1 at 10 am
Remember to drop off one dozen hardboiled decorated eggs for each egg hunter you will be bringing on or before Friday, March 31 at 11:30 am.
~ Upcoming Events~
Please mark your calendar with these important dates.
Month at a glance
Save the Date
July
July 4: Issaquah 4th of July Parade 10:30 am
September
September 9: Work Party 9 am – 12 pm
September 11: Honeybees First Day of School
September 12: Ladybugs Meet the Teacher
September 13: Crickets First Day of School
September 14: Ladybugs First Day of School
September 15: Apple Fest-Welcome Back to School 5:30 pm (all family event held at The Children’s Garden)
September 29: Homecoming (adult only event held at Trinity Tree Farm)
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
View our Closure and Inclement Weather page for policy information and pick up a hard copy from the bulletin board.