Happy Children’s Day! May the Fourth be with you and Happy Cinco de Mayo! Lots of celebrations this week, and all of them, fun celebrations of life and laughter. 

If you are familiar with the style of our weekly Gazette, you are probably guessing that every single paragraph this week is going to start with “OH!”

Oh! How we are blown away by your support, your appreciation, and your love for our staff, our school and our program!

Oh! How much we feel appreciated by you, and want to send it all back right at you all! Thank you for a wonderful Teacher Appreciation week! The treats, the bevvies, the lunch, and the superhero signs! How spoiled are we?!

Oh! We are blown away by your sense of humor, sense of fun, and sense of ‘rolling up your sleeves and getting involved’ attitude, and, thank you so much for an amazing Auction weekend! 

Oh! How we are blown away by you entrusting your kiddos to our care! 

Oh!, How we love them, and you, and this community, and the feeling that we get after every class, walking down the brick path to the gazebo!

Oh! Thank you immensely for everything!

Oh! What an amazing week we just had, basking in the glow of the post auction buzz, the work on the special warm-hearted Mother’s Day gifts, and the last minute preparations for the Art Show, learning new dances, making sure every student has all the art, and reading and re-reading their biographies to make sure we got every detail correct. 

Oh! We cannot believe that there are only 5 weeks of school left and we have 1) so much to do, 2) so little time left to visit and converse with our amazing parent community, and 3) lots of plans to make for summer get-togethers and auction event purchases. How did the year go by so quickly? If you are one of those nostalgic parents who saves each of the Gazettes, or collects the weekly classroom newsletters in a three ring binder, you will see that in September, we warned you all about how quickly this year would go by. As we always say, the days go slow, but the years fly by. Here we are in May!

May, of course, is Mother’s Day, and we hope you all feel loved and celebrated by the littles that you brought into this world. They sure are not shy about telling us how much they love YOU! Happy Mother’s Day to all of our mamas. We hope you enjoy your special gifts from your kiddos, and have a special day with them on Sunday. Donna will always remember her Mother’s Day breakfast in bed provided by her three littles under the age of 5. – A lovely tray with a flower from the garden in a vase, a bagel with cream cheese, and an ice cold beer. (!) When Donna’s son was asked about the beer, he said, “Well, I didn’t know what else you liked to drink!” Donna decided that she really needed to work on her motherly image :0/  Hope you all get what you really want for Mother’s Day…time alone, or time together, breakfast in bed or brunch, fancy dinner, or a drive in the country. We love and appreciate you all, Moms! 

May is also Art Show month, and next Wednesday we have a wonderful evening ahead!

We’ll be gathering Wednesday evening at 6:00 p.m. at Eastside Community School
(5025 Issaquah-Pine Lake Rd SE, Issaquah, WA 98029).

We would love a few adult helpers at 4:45 p.m. to assist with setting up chairs and hanging artwork as we figure out our new location and bring the children’s creations to life. Because of the nature of setup, we’re hoping for helpers who are able to come without children this time around.

Please let us know if you’re available to lend a hand!

One quick and important reminder as we head into these special last weeks of school: We’ve noticed a lot of joyful parking lot play happening at pickup lately, and while we absolutely love seeing the children and families soaking up these moments together, safety has to remain our top priority.

Please remember that any child in the parking lot must be holding hands with an adult at all times. That is our most important rule.

We also want to gently remind families that, due to insurance requirements, The Children’s Garden campus is officially open to children from 7:45 a.m.–3:45 p.m. only, except during special school events that are arranged with our insurance company ahead of time (such as Apple Fest, Graduation, etc.).

Thank you so much for helping us keep everyone safe while still making space for the friendships, connection, and community that make The Garden so special. If you’d like to continue visiting after pickup, the Squak Valley playground just up the street is a wonderful nearby gathering spot.

Ladybugs

What a fun week we had with these littlest of our littles. They had such fun with imaginative play…we had shipping trucks getting produce from the farmers and taking it to QFC, we had babies needing to go see a doctor, and we had tea parties galore. How fun to play with these Ladybugs and to model and shadow friendship skills with them. We love to realize the growth that they have shown in just these few short months, inviting others to play, asking to join in, and setting up wonderful imaginary worlds for all to experience. We see the Bugs becoming Crickets as they have started to get loud! Dinosaurs roaring, firefighters’ sirens blaring, and paint, everywhere! :0)

What a treat to see so many of our Ladybug parents at the auction on Friday night. We understand that it can be a little bit of a ‘shy’ feeling, entering into an environment with lots of parents who have been there more than once. We got you, first timers! You showed up! And you had fun, and you are ready to model it for the next year! Wow! Some great bidding wars were going on with Ladybug parents, and lots of laughs were observed as well. What a fun evening! Thank you so much for showing up. Thank you also, to Caroline and Nick, for sharing their story of Garden Community with the rest of us on Friday night. We so appreciate you all. 

Ladybug families! You are figuring it out and learning about how important community is for a young family. We love it. We see it. We want you to help us introduce this idea to the next ladybug class. Don’t be surprised if a teacher approaches you in the next week or so to help us make plans for next year. You guys are awesome and are realizing how important building a community is for a preschool family. Our alum families are still involved with their preschool community long past their high school graduation. Donna and Brin are attending weddings, baby showers and other events from their little Gardeners now that they are adults and building their own families and futures. 

Crickets

Wow! Wasn’t that a fun auction!? Thank you so much to Stevin for amazing videos, and thank you all for showing up! What fun to see you all having so much fun together, and wow! Did you guys show up and have fun! 

Yuri came in on Wednesday to share a lesson about Children’s Day, which was Tuesday. Thank you so much Yuri for sharing your traditions and stories about how the carp fight their way up stream, just like our salmon, and, like our children, go through challenging courses, to become strong ‘dragons’! Such a fun lesson. Thank you so much for setting it up for us and sharing your wonderful story. We love seeing the carp fly at our roadside sign and over our courtyard. 

We had a great week in class this week with the kiddos. We worked on Mother’s Day gifts, we practiced our Art Show dances and we talked a lot about the life cycle of the butterfly. These kiddos are making their caterpillars out of egg cartons and are wrapping their caterpillars in yarn to symbolize the building of the cocoon. 

Honeybees

These Honeybees are amazing! They finished up a few last minute art show projects, they learned two new dances, and they finished up their Mother’s Day gifts. We started learning about insects and butterflies, which will lead us into the study of the Honeybee. 

We thought it would be fun to ‘write’ our own news this week, and drew pictures of what we did on the sunny weekend, and then ‘sounded out’ our sentences. “I Played” “P” what letter says “P”? “Pl”, “what letter says “L”? Etc. We played a game at circle time, from Koa’s mum, Katie’s teacher boxes of goodies…”I have an “A”, Who has an “M” where everyone has a card showcasing a letter, and asking for another letter. It’s a really cool way to practice recognizing letters and letter sounds. 

At The Children’s Garden, we work with letters and numbers and sounding out sentences, learning about periods and spaces between words, but our focus is on social emotional learning. 

This week’s weekly news shared the range of kiddo’s ability to recognize letters and sound out words. They are all doing fine. Learning how to sound out words and write letters is exactly what Kindergarten is for. That is what the Kindergarten teachers are preparing to do. Our job, at The Garden, is to teach the kids how to ask for help, how to share, how to separate from parents, how to advocate for themselves and others, and how to be a strong community member. We work with the kids on how to problem solve, how to dress or undress for the weather, how to invite themselves and others to play, how to open their own snack containers, how to check in with a classmate who looks like they are feeling sad, or mad, or hurt. We love when a Honeybee finds our eyes and gives a full on greeting – “Hi!, Donna, it’s great to see you, today!” We encourage our students to be proud of what they have learned and stand in front of their peers to share. Our World Culture reports and weekly poetry recitations do exactly that. We are proud of our Honeybees. Wherever they are in reading, or writing, we know that they are confident, friendly, and socially ready to take on the next level of education, and are definitely ready to become involved community members in any community that they are, or will be, a part of. 

Happy Mother’s Day Weekend!