STOP! These last few weeks are coming fast and hard, and the staff is looking at each other, wishing that everything would slow down!

We are all in the groove of tying up loose ends and preparing for our final class session. Please check the lost and found (top shelf of lending library) there are lots of goodies in there. While you’re at it, check out the puzzles, toys and books in the lending library. Take one or two or a few!

With lots of water play in these final weeks of school, please send an extra set of clothes with your Gardener to change into if they get wet. To those of you who have welcomed your Gardener in dry warm loaner clothes from the school, please make sure to launder and return those so that we have them for others in need.

As we wrap up the school year, we are scheduling committee end of year celebrations, board celebrations and inductions and room parent appreciation gatherings. Thank you to everyone who has served on the board this year, the fundraising committee, or as a room parent! We can’t even begin to tell you how much we appreciate you all. We are already excited to make plans with next year’s group of amazing volunteers!

No classes on Monday for Memorial Day. We will be back at The Garden on Tuesday.

Read on for class news.

Ladybugs

What a fun week in the Ladybug class! We had Sana’s mum, Ema, help us out on Tuesday, as Cara’s scheduled substitute was ill. Cara went on a ‘final bucketlist’ trip to Disneyland with her older sister who is battling leukemia. We had fun with Ema and did some fun dancing with partners at circle and a group dance with our beautiful rainbow ribbons.

It has also been fun to see our mommies with brand new babies pop in every once in a while at The Garden! Welcome back Bryn and Gabi! We are so happy to see you again!

On Thursday, we celebrated Orion’s fourth trip around the sun! Parsley Flakes made a beautiful crown, and we all enjoyed singing our our Garden birthday song.

We danced to a new favorite, “We are the Dinosaurs”. Ask your ladybug dinosaur how they ‘make the earth flat!’

Also on Thursday, we had a bunch of parents stay after bell ringing to play and work on the playground, spreading bark and weeding the courtyard. These little bugs loved seeing their parents when they went out to play. Thank you to everyone who participated. What a wonderful community we have here at The Garden! Have a great weekend!

Crickets

We had such a fun week in the Cricket class. We made stamper books with our lifecycle of the frog rubber stamps, and then had the children dictate their stories to us. So fun! We love how their stories have nothing to do with the lifecycle of the frog! Very sweet and very fun. We did some insect counting and then practiced writing our numbers, 1-5. These kids are really growing with their ‘want’ to do better with their writing. When a teacher circles one of their numbers and says “Wow! That is my favorite!” we notice that they double down on their efforts and pencil grip to make an even better one.

We also learned a new song that we love to dance to – the rocketship song – and we danced to it often this week. On Wednesday, we had Cari subbing for us as Cara went on a ‘final bucketlist’ trip to Disneyland with her older sister who is battling leukemia. The kids always enjoy seeing Cari, and we had fun reading the rest of our stamper books and making our honeybee necklaces – because, in just 6 Cricket classes, these kiddos will be graduating to the Honeybee class! How did that happen? This morning, we had our Stay and Play and Work event during class and we had such a fun time with you all. Thank you for joining us. No classes on Monday for Memorial Day. We will see you on Wednesday!

Honeybees

Oh! My goodness! What a fun week in the Honeybee class! We had lots of giggles as we began wrapping up this Honeybee school year. We started reading some cowboy tall tales getting ready for our Roundup in two weeks. We also did some special preparations and recordings for our final day of class and our graduation ceremony. If you have not yet done so, please RSVP to our Graduation page so that we know how many chairs we need for the ceremony.

We wrote our own story books, with prompts each day. The first day was “Once upon a time…”, day two was “And every day…” etc. We loved how much time the kids put in to creating their stories, knowing they only had to do one page each day. One student said that “This is the best picture that I ever drew in my whole life!”

We worked on some fun pages about insects that will go into our portfolios that will come home close to the last day.

We learned more about Honeybees and all the jobs that the different bees in the hive have and then took our roles to act out the business of the Honeybee Hive. We had Cari in the classroom for Cara on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Cara went on a ‘final bucketlist’ trip to Disneyland with her older sister who is battling leukemia.

We are ‘cracking down’ on the wild running about after class each day. We totally understand how these afterschool times are a sweet time for everyone involved, knowing that these times are running out quickly. We don’t want to stop it completely, but we are noticing more bonks and tears. Our rules are “No running around when the bricks are wet. It’s too slippery” “No going up on the office deck or the movement room deck” and “When the teachers leave between 3:30 and 3:45, we ask that the play leaves The Garden also” The playground on Issaquah Hobart RD just north of The Garden is a fun gathering place to reconnect after the teachers leave the school. Thank you for your understanding. We hate to see collisions, slips and bonks and tears. We want the courtyard to be safe for all that are present, including our younger siblings.

We had a wonderful group of parents join us on Thursday for our Stay and Play event. Thank you to everyone who joined us on the playground to spruce up our playground. We couldn’t keep this school going without you all. We love and appreciate everything you do.

No class on Monday for Memorial Day. We will see you all on Tuesday.

Have a wonderful weekend!