Next week are our final closing circles of the school year. We invite the Ladybug and the Cricket families to arrive at pick up about 10 minutes early so that you can join us in our send off to the summer. At the end of every school year, we send home a grocery bag with each child, with their extra clothes, end of year news and mail, Fathers’ Day gifts, small teacher made yearbook for each child, and, if a child is not returning to The Garden, we send home their emergency kit. It is always a fun exercise to ‘probe’ into the kids’ mailboxes to find what treasures are deep into the back of their cubbies – we often find a handprint turkey that never made it home, or a few ‘gems’ or beads from a random playground discovery. Each child should bring home a necklace featuring the mascot of their next year’s school class, a Cricket, or a Bee.

Check out the Lost and Found items and the wonderful collection of books from the lending library. We will donate anything not claimed and start fresh with different books in the fall. Please help yourself. 

If you happen to find any tiny treasures from the school that have made it home in pockets or backpacks, like little animals, items from the sensory table, triangle or wedge shaped polishing stones from the dino den, etc., we’d love to have them back so that they can be discovered as treasures again during the next school year! 

Lastly, we are often asked what families can do over the summer to help their kiddos, our answer is always, spend time with them! Play with them. Have fun with them. Have playdates with other children. Go on adventures with them – a walk through town, a day at the beach, stay up late, lying down on a blanket and look at stars. Make S’mores. Take a ferry ride. Read to them, let them read to you, (they can read the pictures, or read by memory). Play board games. The Orchard Game is a wonderful first board game, Uno, Sorry, Lots of card games – SNAP, Go Fish, etc. Play Car Bingo for short or long drives, Sing fun songs all summer long! Jump in the sprinkler, have a picnic lunch outside, write a note or draw a picture to mail to a family member who lives away from you, and let your kiddo put the stamp on it and take it to the post office! 

Play some silly word games “I’m thinking of a word that rhymes with cat.” “I spy something that starts with ‘b’ sound”, “Robot Blending – say each sound in a three letter word like a robot: /c/../a/../t/ – see if they can blend the sounds to make ‘cat’. …And, have some time alone as parents as well. Go on a date night, Try to fit in a weekend getaway, or some alone time. Fill your summer with the things, the activities and the people that you love. That is the biggest lesson for your child! 

Ladybugs

What a great week we had with these bugs! Boy have they grown! We sent a video message to our friend, Sean, in China, and we made our “I’m a Little Cricket” peek-a-boo books. This song is sung to the tune of “I’m a Little Teapot”. We hope you enjoy reading/singing it with your little Ladybug. Have a great weekend and we will see you Tuesday for our final Ladybug session. We invite you to come join us for the final ten minutes of class as we say goodbye for the summer.

Crickets

We had a fun and full week in the Cricket class, having a hot day to explore the creek, realizing that our caterpillars have emerged out of their cocoons as butterflies, making our Honeybee necklaces, and having wonderful picnic snacks outside on the playground. We finished all our “All About Me” reports, and oh! How proud are we of these Crickets!? They each got up and bravely stood in front of the circle and shared some fun information about themselves. What an accomplishment! We learned a poem called “I’m a Little Honeybee” and had some fun practicing reciting it at circle time as solos and duets. We invite you to come join us for the final ten minutes of class on Wednesday, our final day, to say goodbye for the summer. 

Honeybees

Wow! What a week! Lots of creek play, picnic snacks, we made our mascot necklaces, came up with cowboy names, voted on our Roundup vittles, painted our cowboy hats, finished our self portraits, made some beautiful things for our graduation ceremony next week, and celebrated Dominic’s birthday circle. We said goodbye to Lyla, enjoyed having Cari as a teacher for a few days and read some great tall tales and Cowboy stories! 

Thursday night was Roundup at the Okie Dokie Corral, and we had a blast with these little Cowpokes! We love to see them bond as a group and enjoy every last minute together. Last Honeybee class is Wednesday morning, pool party is Thursday and a week from today is our Graduation Ceremony – Friday morning at 10:30 AM. The ceremony takes place in front of the gazebo, so everyone will park in the lower lot. We all have so many mixed emotions about all of the events of the upcoming week, and we know you all do as well. We’re all in this together. Have a great weekend.