~ Bulletin Board ~
Events, opportunities and resources for our Garden community.
Community Cornucopia
To help support those in our community experiencing food insecurities, we participate in the Issaquah-Sammamish Food Project program that aids the Issaquah Food Bank through bi-monthly coordinated collection and delivery of requested donation items.
Our next collection deadline is
Friday, December 8
Stop in the office and grab a bag and visit our Community Cornucopia page for Issaquah Food Bank requested items for December.
Let us know if you’d like to be a “food fairy” and help deliver our donation.
Birthday Circle
We celebrate each child near their birthday or 1/2 birthday with a visit from Parsley Flakes, our unicorn birthday friend, singing, walks around the sun, a personalized birthday crown and more. Thank you to room parents for organizing our birthday circle schedule.
Many families enjoy bringing a small toy or treat to hand out to their classmates as they leave class. Please take note of the following if you are handing out a food item.
- To ensure health and inclusion for those children with dietary restrictions please check in with fellow parents ahead of time so they can make arrangements to bring a special treat for their child if needed.
- Please wrap all food items individually to make sure nothing is consumed without the knowledge of the child’s caregiver.
- As always, we are a nut free campus.
Thank you!
Larry the Fish Man
Larry Franks, our long time friend, alum parent and FISH (Friends of the Issaquah Salmon Hatcher) volunteer extraordinaire will be visiting our Cricket and Honeybee classes on October 11 and give the students an o-fish-al salmon presentation.
~ The Mousehole~
We’ve got Larry the Fish Man coming to Cricket and Honeybee class next Wednesday! We love singing this song to him to share with him just some of the things we know about our favorite fish, the salmon!
I am a Salmon song (sung to the tune of BINGO)
I am a salmon in this life and this is what I look like!
Nice long body, sideways eyes, 1 2 3 4 5 6 Fins,
I have scales instead of skin,
And gills for breathing out and in.
October 6, 2023
The teachers are looking forward to our Ladybug check ins next Friday.
It will be so nice to get to know you each a little better and talk about our favorite people together! While most of our littlest littles are still doing a lot of parallel play, the following are things that we observe as we prepare for our mini-conferences.
Questions to ask during check ins next week:
How is my child doing after drop off?
Who do they play with?
How well do they sit at circle?
How are they with transitions?
Do they share,invite to play, or invite themselves to play?
Do they grasp the circle discussions and concepts?
What is their attention span like?
Do they advocate for themselves or for others?
What can we do at home to support them?
The teachers will be asking you questions too!
How is the school/morning routine going for you at home?
Have you noticed any different behaviors since starting school?
Has anything changed in your family ‘dynamics’ since the start of school?
How are you finding the Garden community involvement level?
We often hear from our families that when they ask their student about what they did during their school day, the answer is always “Nothing”.
We promise you that we fill our days with wonderful activities!
As a parent myself, I remember that the kids always wanted to talk a lot during bedtime, so that is when I would ask some open ended questions like the following.
Questions to ask your children about their school day:
Who made you smile today?
Who was kind to you today?
What made you laugh today?
Did anything make you sad today or hurt your feelings?
Did you see anyone else who was sad today? Did anyone check in with them? Did you check in with them?
What is the funniest thing you heard today?
Did you try something new today?
Can you tell me something that you learned today?
What story did the teachers look at today at circle?
Did you show kindness to anyone today?
What are you thankful for today?
Ladybugs
Crickets
Honeybees
~ Office Notes~
School Directory
We will be sending out a hard copy and link to digital copy of the School Directory next week.
We use the information you provide in Brightwheel to create our directory. Please visit your student’s profile in Brightwheel this weekend and be sure your address, email and phone numbers are all up to date. The office will print out the directory the next week.
~ Gratitude Corner~
The decorations were beautiful, the games were a blast, !the food and drinks were delicious-oh those amazing baked treats and huge birthday cakes!- and visiting with friends new and old warmed our hearts! Thank you to everyone who joined us! Our school founder, Bonnie, was moved by her special birthday celebration and we all looked so festive in our Garden Gear!
We are grateful for all the volunteers who made this event such a huge success!
Special thanks to Cricket Claire’s mom, Erin Carpinito, for organizing our Garden Gear and the venue including food trucks.
Speaking of Garden Gear-we are so grateful to The Children’s Garden Board for gifting the staff with this lovely apparel.
Much thanks to Cricket Korzen’s mom, Jazmine Walton, for her décor full of lovely kid made art, beautiful flowers and specially cultivated pampas grass.
We appreciate the classes for organizing games and our bakeoff with special thanks to Honeybee Liam’s mom, Lauren Hollinger and Honeybee James and Ladybug Madison’s mom, Leah Julius for leading the way.
Congratulations to Cricket, Orion’s mom, Adelaide Chertkow, for her continued reign as bakeoff winner.
We can’t get to the end of this week without sharing our appreciation of long time friend Nigel Cooper and the magical way he has with children. Nigel had many of the kids cracking up as they got their pictures taken and he worked to find ways to help our most tentative participants feel comfortable in front of the camera.
~ Calendar~
Please mark your calendar with these important dates.
October
October 20: All Class Pumpkin Patch-Carpinito Brothers
October 30: Cricket Halloween celebration during class.
October 31: Honeybee Halloween celebration during class
November
November 16: Honeybee Harvest Feast during class time
November 17: Cricket Harvest Feast during class time
November 22-24 Thanksgiving Break (no school for students and staff)
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
~ Poems~
School Poems
Part of our daily routine at The Garden is singing or saying a few of our traditional poems.
Find a printable version to our Closing Circle Song, and the poem “We Light This Candle” at the following links.