What a wonderful week we just had! Isn’t a Pacific Northwest Autumn the best?!  Beautiful colors, sunny weather mixed with changing weather, and the excitement of Halloween just around the corner!

We took advantage of the beautiful fall weather to have our picture days this past week. Our favorite Office Manager and Administrator, Brin, took on the job of photographer this year, (as one of her many hats is a professional photographer, of course!), and we got to get all three classes photographed this week. Makeups will come in a few weeks, and we are pretty sure that all of you will have a fabulous photo of your Gardener to send out to family and friends far and wide, this holiday season. 

With the chilly days starting up, we want to remind everyone to dress your child in layers, or send layers in their backpacks. Please label all the layers. (We have so many sweatshirts in our Lost and Found!) The rechargeable hand warmers on Amazon have been well reviewed by the staff and Garden families. OCOOPA is a good brand, but there are lots out there, and the kids love to have warm hands in their pockets. A few of the students have brought warm ‘tea’ in their thermos or water bottles, and that does wonders as well. The staff have discovered ‘sipping broths’ or consomme soup ‘tea bags’ to add to their water bottles and they are delicious. So far, we have only found them on Amazon, but you may find them somewhere else. There’s tortilla soup, Pho, Lentil, Tomato, Thai Lemongrass, etc. Check ‘em out! 

We want to give an important reminder that we are a nut free campus and if you happen to forget and send a nut filled snack with your child, we will return it with a note that we can’t have it at school. We have some serious allergies in our community and want to make sure that everyone feels safe. It is completely understood that parents are in a hurry in the morning, not thinking straight and inadvertently send something in that doesn’t follow the restrictions, no guilt, no shame…but we are strongly looking out for our kiddos and will send home the snack with a note.  

We’ve had so many fun birthday circles already, and we think you will all agree that they are such memorable and special events. Make sure that your child is on the calendar for either a day around or on your child’s birthday, or a half birthday date. We want to make sure that every Gardener is celebrated. 

If you’re missing a water bottle, snack container, pair of gloves or sweatshirt, please check our “Lost and Found” shelf on top of the Lending Library. 

Next Friday is our beloved Pumpkin Patch Family Field Trip at the Carpinito Brothers Farm Fun yard. We absolutely love the Carpinito Brothers, and are so appreciative to have a connection (or two!) with the family! If you have the opportunity to check out their produce stand, do it! The staff loves to shop for all of their produce there! This is such a fun day for the whole family to hang out with their Garden Community, and enjoy seeing the animals, the corn pit and the rubber ducky races up close! Hope to see you all there. 

Ladybug

Picture Day was on Tuesday and we so appreciate our amazing Brin, taking on yet another role, as our photographer. Brin is a professional photographer in addition to all the work that she does here at The Garden, and we know you will appreciate her skill when you see the beautiful first portrait of your little Ladybug! 

We’ve had a few parents asking about their child’s separation anxiety continuing. Parents, this is HUGE for these littles, and for YOU! You are all doing great! We understand how difficult it is to see your child still teary, or sobbing, as you are leaving them. Please, Please, know that their tears dissipate quickly. There are a few that still have a few teary sessions throughout the class time, and that might set off the other fragile kiddos, but it is all getting better! Can you imagine this huge change that is happening for your little 2 and a half year old? They’ve only been on the earth for 2 and a half years, and they are growing and learning an entirely new routine, learning to share, learning to take turns, and learning to trust several new adults. It’s new for you parents as well. We’re doing it. We’re all in this together, and it just keeps getting better and better as your child gets stronger and stronger. Keep up what you are doing. When they suddenly have that ‘turning the corner’ day, it feels so good, and it will happen. The staff has been through this every year, and please believe us, if we feel like they are having a rougher than usual day, or it just isn’t coming together, we will give you a call and say, “today’s not the day for your kiddo, but we’ll try again next day”. We have not felt that way at all this year. On Tuesday, we had our best day yet, with few tears after drop off and no flare ups through the day. It feels as though we have turned the corner. 

It was lovely to have Freya in class Tuesday and Thursday to help out with Donna’s transition to medical leave. The kids just love having her warm spirit in the classroom. Freya is such a lovely staff member who has a wonderful connection to every one of our littles. You’re going to love to get to know her over these next few weeks. 

The Bug Teachers are looking forward to checking in with the parents this afternoon to discuss your favorite preschooler, your Ladybug, with you all. Thanks in advance for signing on to Zoom during your scheduled slot and letting us scoot off to get to our next chat in a timely manner. Of course, fifteen minutes is not enough time to tell you how wonderful your child is, so please know that we can check in more at another time. Just let us know you need more time to express any other concerns or questions you might have. We can schedule a phone call or an in person chat. 

Cricket

What a fun “E” sharing basket we had on Monday! The kids made rainbow “E”s and then marched Elephants through the sand trays to make E’s. They had fun making E’s with their fingers, with our MatMan pieces and up in the air. 

The Cricket year is a wonderful opportunity to set up play dates and play groups. In the past, we have had “kids clubs” where a few parents each week host two or three kiddos at their home, (with or without parents), we’ve had scheduled park play dates, where a playground is posted each week where you can join if you can, and we also have ‘carpools’ to have one adult pick up their child and one more and take them home to lunch and then the guest parent arrives at their home a half hour or hour later. These are amazing community builders for the kids and the parents. They are amazing opportunities to help your child learn ‘sharing/hosting’ skills, and to build a bond with one or two classmates. (a little advice for hosting an in home play date…talk to your child about it before hand, and decide what toys they are willing to ‘share’ or let their friends play with, and let them decide what toys they want to put away, that they are not willing to share) We find these play dates are wonderful opportunities to help your child feel even more comfortable entering the Cricket class each day, looking for their ‘playmate’ or friend, and it is also wonderfully helpful for you parents, to perhaps find your comfort and connection with one other parent that can help you carpool, or have some fun with while the kiddos are at school! 

We completed our first Art Show piece, and can’t wait until Spring when we show it to you at our big event. We started a fun “5 Little Pumpkins” booklet and had fun singing the song at circle. 

Picture Day was on Wednesday and we so appreciate our amazing Brin, taking on yet another role, as our photographer. Brin is a professional photographer in addition to all the work that she does here at The Garden, and we know you will appreciate her skill when you see the beautiful preschool photo of your little Cricket! 

We enjoyed having Michael’s Dad, Peter, join us on Wednesday to read a story to the class. We absolutely love Guest Reader Wednesdays.

We had Cari in the class to sub for Donna on Wednesday and Friday, and the kids had a ball cozying up with their Ladybug teacher once again. Cari will be with us for the next few weeks in Cricket classes.

Honeybee

The letter of the week this week was “A” and Addy brought in a fabulous sound basket. 

Our poem this week was “Whisky Frisky”, and introduced us to our squirrel puppet that sits on the mantle. Whisky is a fun puppet that has a long history at The Garden, and an evolving character! 

Whisky started out as “Scaredy Squirrel”, named after the children’s book series about a flying squirrel that was afraid to leave his home, and wore a helmet in case he fell and had an emergency kit handy at all times. Scaredy grew brave in the stories and came out to circle when she saw a student showing brave behavior. The staff decided that we were really not comfortable with the ‘name calling’ label of “Scaredy” and we started to call this puppet, “Squirrelly”! We didn’t call upon Squirrelly as often, as this puppet really didn’t have a strong role at circle time. We happened upon the poem, “Whisky Frisky”, many years ago, and we love watching the squirrels on the playground and campus grounds twirling and whirling around the trees, and decided that the introduction of this poem is a wonderful opportunity to introduce our squirrel puppet, now named, “Whisky”. The Honeybees will often ask if “Whisky” can dismiss them, rather than Belleamie or Luna. It is sweet to see the connections that the students make with these puppets, and they, too, know the perfect opportunities to bring out each of our beloved friends. 

We celebrated our friend, Caleb, as he went around the sun for his 5th time on Wednesday, and we learned a new song, “I am Amazing”, which led to a brainstorming session on ways to be brave. We have a brave group of Bees this year, and we are loving to watch them get better and better with their courage, braveness and friendship skills. 

We finished up our Salmon unit and started to talk about pumpkins, their life cycle and how the life cycle of salmon is different from the life cycle of a pumpkin! We had fun weighing pumpkins and tapping golf tees into pumpkins! 

The art work that was happening this week was so beautiful, full of fall colors and further exploration of self portraits. 

Picture Day was on Wednesday and we so appreciate our amazing Brin, taking on yet another role, as our photographer. Brin is a professional photographer in addition to all the work that she does here at The Garden, and we know you will appreciate her skill when you see the beautiful preschool photo of your amazing Bee! We jumped excitedly as we counted to 25, and we talked about what it means to mail a letter! 

The Bee Teachers had a great time checking in with the parents this week, to discuss your favorite preschooler, your Honeybee, with you all. Thanks so much for making the schedule work for us all letting us scoot off to get to our next chat in a timely manner. Of course, fifteen minutes is not enough time to tell you how wonderful your child is, so please know that we can check in more at another time. Just let us know you need more time to express any other concerns or questions you might have. We can schedule a phone call or an in person chat. 

It was another busy busy week in the Honeybee class!