We had a fun week at The Garden! It sure is starting to look like Spring! The flowering trees are blossoming, the bulbs are shooting up their greens and the weather changes from sunny to rainy and back again, seemingly every half hour! Thanks for continuing to send your kiddos with all the outdoor layers that they need to continue their fun on the playground.

Speaking of spring, remember to ‘spring forward’ your clocks this weekend, one hour on Sunday morning. It is Daylight Savings TIme!  

Our Honeybees finished up their animal reports and are now beginning our Garden Favorite World Culture Report unit, the Crickets are practicing their solo recitations of nursery rhymes and acting out our favorite fairy tales, and the Ladybugs have even started standing up at circle and singing a song as a solo or as a duet! Can you believe that they have the comfort level and self confidence to do that as an almost three year old, or an almost 5 year old? It’s pretty cool to grow up as a Gardener!

Brook and Mick had some leftover sandbags from the flooding in December, and we all knew that our sandbox was down about two feet since the September work party, so we had an impromptu volunteer session in the Honeybee class that Pete,Jessica and Jonathan helped our students empty the bags into the sandbox! Thanks so much guys for helping us out! The kiddos love the fresh sand, clear of twigs, wood chips and other debris that finds its way in.

Speaking of Brook and Mick, our landlords hosted a fun coffee talk on Thursday and Friday for each class. It was great to see so many of our parents and grown-ups hang around for a cup o’ joe with our upstairs friends and neighbors. 

Ladybugs

We finished off our colors of the rainbow this week, with Blue, Indigo and Violet. What a fun way to learn the colors, color names and explore all the things in the world that are each color. We also had some wonderful practice with the children standing up and singing the “Rainbow Song” as a solo at circle time. We are seeing the comfort level and self-confidence growing each session. On Thursday of next week, we will have a Rainbow Party! The children are invited to wear rainbows of clothes and bring rainbows of snacks!

Next week, we have our Parent Teacher Spring Conferences on Tuesday. You will be emailed a zoom link for your conference with one of the three Ladybug teachers, and can sign on to that zoom link, and the teacher will ‘let you in’ at your allotted time. The conferences will be about 20-25 minutes long, and will include an assessment that we do in class, a self-portrait, a report from the teacher, and then a discussion amongst the parents and the teacher about strengths and growth, and what our focus will be going forward. We look forward to conferencing with you all. There will be no class for students on Tuesday, the 10th.

Crickets

We were happy to have our Crickets back in class again on Monday. We made our March calendars, started looking at the wonderful signs of spring, began looking at different versions of the “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” fairy tale, and worked on our assessments for our upcoming spring Parent Teacher Conferences. 

These next few months are busy, with Leprechaun Day, Egg Hunt, Butterfly Tea, Art Show and the Auction. It can sometimes be hard to keep everything straight, but our retreat last week helped the staff, at least, to get all things organized and ready for the big roller coaster of events ahead, while continuing to keep the curriculum flowing steadily. 

Honeybees

We had a beautiful day outside on the playground for almost the entirety of the class on Monday, enjoying the beautiful sunshine that we might not see again for a couple of weeks. Then we went into the classroom to hear two more animal reports, Orion and Elli. Our focus now turns to the introduction of our World Culture unit. We encourage your child to choose a country that perhaps they have visited, you have family who lives there, or a parent has taken a trip there, or their family heritage is from that country. It is a lovely way for them to learn about their family history, or to connect with a relative to interview, or have a relative send items from the country. This report is a culmination of all the skills that they have practiced and learned this year with their presentations. Sign up for your child’s country and presentation date, see video examples, view our World Culture Document and get all the info you need here on our World Culture Report page.

We worked on our March calendars this week, drew our monthly self portraits for our portfolios, and we made “in” books, after Max brought in the “I” sound basket. The staff is beginning to complete the assessments of each student to continue preparing for the Spring Parent Teacher Conferences coming up on the 24th of March. We look forward to having our final Parent Teacher Conference with you to talk about your students accomplishments, strengths and areas of growth before they set off to kindergarten! 

Speaking of kindergarten, we have heard about many families having visited their child’s new school for next year. This is an exciting time for both parents and for students, and we are noticing some strong emotions throughout our Honeybee community. The children are coming to the realization that things are changing, the parents are feeling bittersweet about the next big step for their little one, and everyone is feeling a little tug of the sentimental journey that is beginning. There are some articles on the Curriculum section on our Parent Portal page that might be helpful to make this transition easier. 

Have a great weekend!