Yet another fabulous week at The Garden! Thank you again for all the appreciations last week. You guys are the best!

We continue to be thrilled watching our caterpillars and tadpoles go through their metamorphosis! The caterpillars have suspended from the ceiling of their container and have formed their cocoons. The tadpoles have grown rear and front legs, and we are watching their tails get smaller. How fun! Thank you again to Honeybee Tillson’s family for the tadpoles! If you are interested in watching butterflies in your own home, you can order a kit here at Insect Lore.  

We had a fundraising meeting on Tuesday evening, where again, we marveled at the generosity of our community and the success of our fundraising events and efforts this year. The wheels are already in motion for our events and campaigns next year. Thank you so much to our committee that guides us through the year. If you have any questions or are interested in joining us on this fun committee, please let us know!

Next week we have a ‘stay and play’ day in each of our three classes. Come and help us spread a new load of wood chips over the playground and share your enjoyment of community building and taking care of your loved spaces with your Gardener at your side! Thursday and Friday next week during class time! If getting involved with this wonderful place, helping to facilitate the growth and development of The Garden, and working with the staff and other Board members to be a trustee for the vision of the school sounds interesting to you, please let us know. There might be a space on the Board or one of our wonderful committees for YOU!

The Crickets and Bees had wonderful Parent Ed classes with Julie Spangler, but unfortunately, due to illness, she was unable to complete a session with the Ladybugs. Julie shares experience, information and provides a forum to discuss parenting strategies and ideas to help and guide you through the preschool years and beyond. If you ever have specific parenting questions or need help with a particular issue, please let us know. We can set you up with Julie or brainstorm as a staff to help and guide you. We are here for you – always! Even beyond your Garden years. Your roots are deep here at The Children’s Garden.

We now have 3 ½ weeks of the school year remaining. How did that happen? With no school on May 27^th for Memorial Day weekend, our Bugs have 7 classes left, Crickets have 9, and Bees have 14 classes left. Please keep an eye peeled for special closing ceremonies for each class and directions on how to gather all the kids’ extra clothes and emergency kits. A reminder to please check the lost and found shelf of the lending library for lost and found items. Any items left after June 12^th will be donated. There are lots of books, puzzles, and other fun things in the lending library also. We will donate whatever is in there in June as well and start fresh in the fall.

Read on for class news.

Ladybugs

The Bugs had another great week at The Garden! We made our 1,2 Buckle My Shoe nursery rhyme books, and had sweet Garden Grad, Hayden, as a sub for Donna on Tuesday. Hayden’s calm energy and warm smile worked wonders as she interviewed our Ladybugs about their dads.

We voted on names for the butterfly that the Ladybugs will release after the wings are dry, once it emerges from the cocoon. The teachers absolutely loved that when we asked the kids for suggestions for names, they suggested their own names! Lily raised her hand and when called on, she said ‘Lily’. Coco raised her hand and when called on, she suggested ‘Coco’ as a name for our butterfly. Most of the bugs did the same thing. It was adorable. We took the three names that did not have a name already assigned to one of our Ladybugs, and the kids voted for their favorite. When we release our butterfly in the Ladybug class, we will say Flutter by, Flappy!

Hope to see a bunch of you next Thursday during class time as we work as a team of parents and kiddos spreading wood chips over the playground!

Have a wonderful weekend Ladybugs!

Crickets

These Crickets are absolutely loving watching the tadpoles! We latched onto that interest and worked with the kiddos to learn how to draw a frog. Each child was given a step-by-step booklet that they followed and ended up illustrating the most adorable little amphibians!

We celebrated Rumi’s birthday on Wednesday and Karen’s Birthday on Friday! Rumi is 4 and Karen is 4.5! Congrats! Parsley Flakes made beautiful crowns, and we all enjoyed watching Rumi and Karen go around the sun.

The Crickets suggested a few names for the butterfly that we will release into the wild once it hatches from its’ cocoon and dries out its’ wings. The teachers discovered something interesting when surveying the Crickets for their votes. We narrowed down the possible names to three. Each cricket would come to the teacher and the teacher would ask “which name do you vote for, a, b, or c?” Almost every time, the Cricket chose the last name that was mentioned. When we started to realize this, we mixed up the order of the options. “Which name do you vote for, b, c or a? or c, a or b?” We found it funny that they merely repeated the last name that we suggested. Not sure if it was because that was the only one that they remembered, or if they REALLY wanted to be playing on the playground and didn’t want to pay attention to butterfly name choices, or? Any statistics specialists out there? Anyway, when the Crickets release their butterfly, we will say Flutter by, Tulip!

Honeybees

What a wonderful week we had, learning about transformations, metamorphosis, life cycles and insects! This all leads to a wonderful introduction to our study of our namesake, the honeybee! We are learning about insect attributes, 6 legs, antennae, head, thorax and abdomen, and learning how to draw a cute little bee. For the last ten minutes of our last Honeybee class on June 11^th, we hope you can join us for a fun video presentation of all that we have learned about Honeybees.

We can’t thank Tillson’s family enough for the amazing opportunity to watch tadpoles change into frogs! Our three little critters now have rear and front legs. How fun. We learned a “Froggy Froggy” poem and also enjoyed singing “5 Green and Speckled Frogs”

It is hard to believe that it was September when we were learning about the life cycle of the salmon and we are now learning the life cycle of the butterfly and the frog. We voted on a name for our Butterfly that we will release, once it has dropped down from it’s cocoon and dried out its wings. Can’t wait for you to hear what our butterfly is called!

Over the next few sessions, we will be reading some ‘Tall Tales’ and some wonderful ‘Cowpoke Stories’ in preparation for our Honeybee Roundup, June 7^th, from 4-7PM. We are working with each of our Bees to come up with a ‘cowpoke name’. Dern Tootin’ Donna, Buttercookie Brook, Cool Cat Cara, Appaloosa Em and Bluebell Buckaroo Brin are anxiously awaitin’ our newest grads’ idears on what they would like to be called at the roundup. If you have a chance, chat about it with them. We like to suggest that they choose a wild west animal, character, or descriptive word that starts with the same letter as their own name, like Tornado Thomas, or Roadrunner Rylie, Wolf Howlin’ Wyatt or Lightnin’ Lisa. We invite our families to have fun and discuss this around the dinner table. Come up with names for the whole family! They can also be something descriptive like Early Riser Elliot, or Sidewinder Susan! We will have a wonderful time down at the Okie Dokie Corral, with a campfire, cookout and amazing time on our beloved playground in the evening hours.

We are beginning our preparations for our Graduation ceremony, June 12^th at 2 PM. These next few weeks are a very special and poignant time for our teachers and our Bees, as we prepare for this ‘moment in time’ celebration. Please slow down, take it all in and enjoy. xo

Have a wonderful weekend!