Can you believe that we are at the end of our first month of the school year? September is always a month of beginnings – new school year, new friends, new classmates, new challenges, and new achievements. The students are doing such a great job, becoming familiar with their routines and the parents are also doing a great job, developing their own goodbye and pick up routines. Thank you so much for listening to the staff as they suggest options to make these transitions easier. The staff has spent the first month learning about the students, helping them use their words to play and share and make friends, and we are so looking forward to chatting with you all about your kiddos at our fall check-ins next month. Thank you all for signing up for those check ins. Please don’t hesitate to bring any concerns and questions that you might have in the meantime to the staff. We always try to respond in a timely manner.

We have noticed that several of our students do not have a spare set of clothes in their cubbies. When the children play with the pulley system over the bridge with the water from the creek, they have been getting pretty wet. We would love to be able to help them all feel comfortable and warm as the seasons change. Speaking of changing seasons, we are seeing a lot more gloves, rain suits, rain pants and rain hats. Please remember to label them all with your child’s name.

All three of our classes have started to talk about salmon. We have moved on from apples to our next autumnal theme in preparation of Issaquah’s returning celebrities. We hope you have all had a chance to take your kiddo to the salmon hatchery. It’s nice to have time to watch the fish without the crowds of Salmon Days. What a treat it is to have our hometown be the host of such an amazing species! We love teaching the children about these wonderful creatures through songs, poems and acting out the lifecycle of the salmon. We also have a Garden alum dad who is also a F.I.S.H. volunteer who comes to our Cricket and Honeybee classes to talk more in depth about the lifecycle of the salmon. We will let you know details of this as we get closer to the visit.

Picture days are next week with our Garden friend, Nigel. Nigel has an amazing way with his camera that finds beautiful smiling pictures of all our students. If you have a timid or camera-shy child, or even if you have a natural camera poser, we would love to have your assistance. Let us know if you can spend a few minutes at drop off on picture day to help the process go more smoothly. Feel free to dress your child in their fancy clothes if you would like. We make a point of not putting paints out or spending a lot of time in the mud on picture days!

Tonight is the night! We hope you can all join us for our annual Homecoming celebration! Homecoming is a great way to visit with your new community and meet some alums and returning community. This year is especially special, as we are honoring our founder, Bonnie, on her 80^th birthday! “80 for our founding lady!” There are going to be lots of alums and returning staff, coming to pay tribute to this amazing woman and the program that she started. Do you know that in the 46 years that The Children’s Garden has been around, we have only had 5 full time teachers?! We love this program and everyone that comes to work at The Garden has decided that it is the only place to be! What an amazing program!

Hope to see you all tonight, and have a great weekend!