Monday's Tattler

Are we there yet?

It's Monday morning after break...rain is mixed with snow at 5:15 in the morning. Even the cat failed to go out...where's the coffee...

It's the first week of Advent, and children will begin to see some Christmas changes this week as we move towards Christmas. A Christmas calendar will go home this week.

We will be going to the Nutcracker Suite with the kids in December.

There will be a visit from Santa on December 20. We need a Santa.

Parents will be asked to bring a small gift to school for their own child in a brown paper bag for the Santa Surprise. Please don't show your child!

We will be out of school December 21- December 26 and resume school to the 30 and be out to January 3.

Lots to do...lots to do...have a great week!

Happy Thanksgiving

A beautiful and wonderful and tasty Thanksgiving to everyone who reads this. May the blessings of God wrap your day in goodness and light.

Love you all,

Judy

Wonderful Wednesday...

Something from the literary world gone awry... thought readers might enjoy...World's Funniest Analogies.

Annual English Teachers' awards for best student metaphors/analogies

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law George. But unlike George, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up...

Thanks, Cayce

Tuesday's Teacher - The Troubled Three

Skipper, the precious three year old son of a nice young couple begins school throwing tantrums, becoming defiant and belligerent, spitting, using bad language, disrupting and deliberately assaulting other little guys at school. The teachers immediately corner the parent.

"He doesn't do that at home," says the astonished parent to the teacher.

"He doesn't have thirty-five competitors at home," retorts the teacher.

"We don't tolerate that kind of behavior at home," reassures the parent.

"I'm glad to hear that, because we can't allow this behavior to go on here either. Now what are we going to do about it? Let's begin with the tantrums. What do you do when your child throws a tantrum at home?"

"We give in and appease him. It's just easier."

A child who throws tantrums is a child who has taken or been given the command of his home. And when a child rules at home, that child will usually take that ruling hand with him to school and assume that his is the last word. Many children are shocked when they find out that they can't command teachers as easily as they do their parents. It's a respect issue.

A tantrum means a child is screaming for boundaries, for the word "NO." A child who throws tantrums is a child out of control because there is no control, and that child is frightened to death that he or she is all alone in the world. There is no law and order and that is the most unsafe, scary, and lonely feeling in the whole world. Because children don't have the vocabulary to express that fear, they throw tantrums.

Best way to stop tantrums is to insist that the tantrum go to a place where it cannot be heard. The parent says not a single word, but carries the child to a quiet place and leaves him or her there to wallow in self pity alone. We don't discuss tantrums, we don't scorn, laugh, punish, or lose our temper. We carry and ignore. When the self indulgence is played out; it's over. The child can return to the activities.

It is never a good idea to appease bad behavior. It is always a good idea to remove badly behaved children from other children's play. Consistency and a casual calm will do more to curb tantrums than all the words there are.

But the root of tantrums is a gap in parenting. Somehow, the child has gleaned that all is not safe, and somehow he or she is not protected. Finding that gap and filling it in will help in ending tantrums. Children don't like too many adult choices. They like routine, they like security, so that they can enjoy playing and being a child. Too often, children are given too much responsibility and too many choices. It's confusing to a very young child, and too much choice often makes children frightened that they are unsafe.

Most poor behavior including tantrums is copied from the parents or older siblings. When children spit, hit, scream at other children, use bad language, you can be that this is what they are seeing at home in the ongoing example of everyday life.

When children are disruptive, you can bet that life at home is chaotic, that order is far from the door. Order teaches order. Chaos teaches chaos.

Changing a child's behavior often means changing an adult's behavior first, because children model their behavior after their parents. Children want to be like their parents. They want to do what their parents do.

No parent has to shout, scream, punch a wall or hit a child. The very best response to poor behavior in a child, after examining one's own conscience, is to tell a child quietly that their behavior is not acceptable, and then remove the child to think about what the child has done or failed to do. When a child knows what he's done, no words are necessary. Send or take the child to his room or sleeping place and leave him there to think about his behavior.

Less is always more. Children never listen past the third word of correction. Ranting and raving only make children rant and rave. But that steady, calm look of disdain, and the silent removal to the sleeping place will do more as punishment than all the words or smacks that an angry parent can muster.

Sound easy? It's never easy, and emotions will always make anger rise. But if a parent can separate himself from the offending child, it helps mitigate the angry emotions on both sides of the parent/child conflict.

Children do know the rules. They can probably recite them and everything you've always told them about the rules. So why do they disobey, disrupt? I don't know. Go look in the mirror to answer that question.

Monday's Tattler

What you NEED to KNOW!

Monday - Wednesday we will be in school regular hours.

We will be doing some all school academic review.

Please DO NOT SEND SICK CHILDREN TO SCHOOL. Every parent signed a contract with the school not to send children who have vomited or who have had fevers. We have had a lot of fudging on this, and because half of our faculty is out sick, we are going to get tough. If your child has been ill this weekend - especially Sunday - he or she may NOT come to school. It is unfair to everyone. If children come to school on Monday and end up going home sick by noon, that is their LAST day this week.

On Wednesday, we will be making cranberry bread with the kids, so PLEASE send an EMPTY soup can or a can of soup size or two or three. Please only open one end.

We will be doing a sock drive for the orphanage in Mexico during the month of December.

Please watch the weather. The temperature is going to bounce this week, and that means one day we will be warm, and the next cold. Please pay attention and dress children appropriately.

Payments as usual are due on Mondays. It is a full tuition week.

Sunday's Plate - Stir Fry

Here's a new gadget for Sunday's Plate: It's a salad, fruit, noodle server. It's called a Snappi and sells for 6. 95.

I thought seriously about making a big roast turkey this week to teach the kids about what they would eat this week at grandmas or Aunt Susie's, but on second thought, I thought I'd let them experience it as a novelty on Thanksgiving instead, and cook a turkey next week just for fun. o this week we are going to have Italian, Mexican and Chinese food as a compliment to feasting.

On Wednesday, I'm going to make my favorite stir-fry. It's made with angel hair pasta and shrimp and ham and chicken and veggies. It's quick and easy like everything I do.

Here's the recipe:

Boil a pound ( and in our case three pounds) of angel hair pasta. Set aside.

In a big wok, stir fry your favorite veggies like onions, garlic, green pepper, broccoli, carrots and anything you have in the fridge in a half stick of butter.

(Stir fry is really a use for left overs.)

Add a 1/4 cup of soy sauce. I use the sweet ABC stuff from the Asian Market, but regular soy sauce will do. Add a teaspoon of ginger and some cracked pepper.

Add your ham cubes or shreds and your cubed uncooked chicken.

When your chicken is cooked, mix in the pasta and then add your shrimp. It will take about three minutes for your shrimp to cook. Serve and eat as a once course meal.

If you need more sauce add more soy sauce.

The Thanksgiving Play

A very busy week concluded with our Thanksgiving Play. On Thursday, we had eleven children out sick, so we were very surprised when the whole group showed up on Friday, and for the most part, were well.

Plays, as I explained on Friday, are important because they satisfy so many of the kindergarten standards expected by any school. They build cohesiveness among students. Plays offer children opportunities to explore that no other teaching technique does.

Does it always work, and can every parent hear and understand every word? Nope. It's a developmental structure that individualizes every child, but just trying, just getting in the game, just playing the part to the best of his or her natural ability is what is important. This breeds success, confidence, and the knowledge that the child can and did and is successful.

With that success under his belt, it's time to return to learning. It's hard with Christmas looming in the near future, but with enough games, prizes and new material, the natural course of learning just takes off now. Readers will be stronger, math skills will come more easily, and there is a huge new level of being grown up that paves the way to more success during the cold blustery winter months.

Children all learn at different rates. Two of our stars are four. Public confidence, the ability to project a line, the natural clown of both children burst forth in a success that will carry these four year olds the rest of the year - they are in Kindergarten already and reading.

Yet, there are other four year olds who can't remember their lines, can't pay attention, and can't deliver an ouch if you stomped on a toe!

So what makes one child so far ahead of another? Nature and nurture. Some children simply grow up fast. They want to know, to do, to explore, to understand, and you hear that in their questions because they see that these desires open the doors to success. It's intelligence right up front. You can see them try to understand what is expected of them, and they try very hard to comply. It's called motivation, discipline and virtue.

The home is also a source of advancement. When parents have expectations, children tend to be more grown up. When time is spent on directing children's activities and behavior; when correction is made, when rules are made and enforced, children tend to be more aware of their surroundings. Children who are talked to, directed and taught at home have a wonderful advantage.

Children who are unmotivated and have neither discipline enforced or encouraged at home won't have any. Chaos is chaos and it fails to breed virtue. When one child could recite the whole play, and another is busy pulling his velcro shoes wondering where he is, there is a sad difference.

So when working with a group of children to produce a play, there are many things to be considered. The writer and director choose lines they think a child may, could, might and probably will deliver. Sometimes those lines have to be changed to fit the ability of the child.

The standing statement before every rehearsal is: This is YOUR responsibility. This is YOUR homework. This is YOUR part of the whole. Do it well for your classmate's sake. Then, when they do their lines well, it's a HUGE hurdle, a huge learning process, and a huge success.

Our children will be involved in group activities right through college. Each one has a voice, a separate need, a desire to be singled out, and sometimes they are, but when there is discipline and virtue, it all works together. I think they worked together brilliantly and did a fine play. Our congratulations to children and parents!

Stuffed Pumpkin

Thought I'd put this here because you can refer to it later. Lots of the kids really liked the stuffed pumpkin yesterday. It was easy to make and makes a great presentation!

Bake a whole pumpkin in a 350 degree oven for about an hour. Squash will do as well, but you don't need all that time.

When pumpkin is DONE, cut the top and clean out the seeds.

While your pumpkin is baking, make three dry cups of rice, brown is preferable because it is better for you.

While rice is cooking, bake a pound of sausage, a pound of ham and a pound of bacon or any combination on a rack with the pumpkin.

When the meat is cooked, chop in a food processor and add to the cooked rice.

When the pumpkin is cooked and cleaned, stuff the rice and meat into the pumpkin.

Cheese sauce:

Melt 1 stick butter and add 1 cup of flour in a sauce pan and make a paste. Add 3 cups of milk and 15 slices of American cheese, a tablespoon of chicken bouillon and bring to a boil. Add a huge dollop of sour cream.

This cheese sauce recipe can be halved and quartered for smaller meals. Cheese sauce lasts in the fridge for a week and is a great soup starter and chip dip.

Slice your pumpkin into slices and pile on your meat-rice mix and pour over your cheese sauce. It's a seller!

Have a brilliant day!

Tuesday's Teacher - Age One to Three...

I'm always harping on the stages of development, and that can be as dull as it comes. But more and more, I'm finding that children who are not living within the bounds of what nature has established are losing out on their lives, on being happy, on growing and developing the way it was meant to be.

That peculiar age: one to three is an especially difficult age for many parents to handle emotionally. Their beautiful baby is suddenly walking - toddling - and he or she is just not the same and no matter how much mom or dad cuddles, holds, and whispers baby nonsense into those sweet little ears. He's a toddler, and he only wants to push away and run his little legs off!

At one, the child is not an infant anymore. He's a toddler, and his life is changing, and so his care is changing too. There is so much for a child to learn between the ages of one and three, there is no room to allow infancy to continue. He has to learn what the word "no" REALLY means. He has to learn to eat at a table with a fork and out of a cup. He needs to learn to sleep in a big bed and perhaps give up his nap. He needs to learn to be quiet when it's appropriate. He needs to learn language and communication skills. He needs to learn words so that he can communicate. He has to learn to wait, to stand in line nicely with his parent, to take his turn, clean up his toys, put his things away, put on his coat, shoes, and gloves. He needs to learn to climb, to run, when to climb and when to run. He needs to learn to come when he is called, to dress himself, to use the toilet, to comb his hair, to brush his teeth, and to say "thank you" and why he is saying "thank you."

It's a lot; it's a whole lot, and if we spend six months of his toddlerhood keeping him a baby, that only gives the toddler eighteen months to do everything a toddler needs to do to get to the next stage.

Parents who use the expression, "He's just not ready" are usually meaning "I'm not ready" to let go of my infant. And who is that fair to?

Expectations for a child who is one to three, are not cruel and inhuman punishment. Expectations begin at one when the child is no longer an infant. The child will have those expectations put on him the rest of his life. These "expectations" establish a child as a functioning member of the community. Avoiding the expectations of life are not doing the child any favors. Letting a two or three year old child behave like a screaming, undisciplined, mess making, indulgent infant are not contributing to society, but detracting from it. And the fault is not the child's but the parent's.

But one does not get from expectation to accomplishment without an enormous amount of work on the side of the parent. It's a daily struggle, a daily chore to repeat a thousand times, "NO" or have to push a little chair to the table, or clean up spills, or change soiled pants, or chase across the grass or down the hall. Teaching, re-teaching, repeating, redoing, undoing, and redoing for two years in a marathon race to the age of three. And thank God it's only two years.

Beginning on time with discipline and training will do more for a child than letting him remain an infant because, "he's not ready."

So what do you do when the child turns three and none of the above accomplishments have been accomplished...next time.

Monday's Tattler

I'm a little late today...we are still working hard on the play. With so many little guys, it's been a real slow go. We are getting costumes together now, and working on polishing our two songs.

The play has been moved to 2:00 on Friday because 3:00 is just too late for some of our very little littles. The children get too tired, and they are not at their best. If parents are taking time off anyway, then we need to put children first. Please be on time.

We are asking parents to bring a small treat to share. A dozen cookies, a dozen cup cakes, a bag of chips, a bag of popcorn. Please do not bring candy or food needing a fork.

School dismisses on Friday at 3:30.

Saturday's Under the Sun - Flat Stanleys Still Traveling!

In Dillon, volunteers working to collect gifts for needy kids worldwide
Operation Christmas Child up and running

By Kathryn Corazzelli

Summit Daily News

Comment: For those of you who have followed our Flat Stanley Project, our Flat Stanleys have made the news! In the picture, three of the children are holding our class's Flat Stanleys!

While many are busy polishing off leftover Halloween candy and planning how to brine the Thanksgiving turkey, folks at the Dillon Community Church are busy wrapping Christmas presents.

The gifts come in the form of empty shoe boxes filled with school supplies, stuffed animals, toys, hygiene items and notes of encouragement for needy kids overseas. The effort, dubbed Operation Christmas Child, is a year-round project of Samaritan's Purse, a religious-based organization that provides emergency relief around the world. Through Operation Christmas Child, 86 million gifts have been hand-delivered using whatever means necessary — including sea containers, boats, camels and dog sleds — to kids worldwide since 1993.

“This may be the only gift they get, not only this year, but possibly for their lifetime,” Kathryn Jo Pfeifer, collection effort coordinator in Dillon said. “It's an amazing opportunity to be able to know you're touching children's lives so far away.”

This is the fourth year the project has been coordinated at the church. They collected 294 boxes in 2009 and 405 in 2010. Last year, 117,466 boxes were collected statewide. “Each box made really counts,” Pfeifer said. “We are hoping we will continue the trend of increasing these numbers each year. We are encouraging people to do neighborhood parties, pizza parties and get together with friend and have some fun with this project while they put together boxes.”

Groups like the local cub scouts and girl scouts, classrooms and individual families like to get together to contribute, Pfeifer said. Just last week, about 90 people met at the church to decorate and stuff 66 boxes — Bass shoe outlet “has been wonderful with collecting shoe boxes” — with presents and supplies, and personal notes and pictures. Each gift is labeled for a boy or girl, and suitable age range.

Countries the gifts are sent to can be tracked online, by making a donation and printing out a tracking bar-code from the organization's website.

That's great for our kids,” Pfeifer said. “It's been fun for them to know where these boxes end up.” And while the individual child the present goes to can't be tracked, contributors do sometimes hear stories from volunteers who make the long trips to deliver the presents.

“They said the kids love the presents, love everything, but a lot of times what they dig through the box looking for is the picture and maybe the letter they get from the individual who made the box,” Pfeifer said.

Many times, volunteers report it's “the kid without shoes that gets the box that has the shoes in it.”

Volunteer Anneke Crowe wraps presents along with her children, who are 8, 6, 5 and 3. Her older two, who have been participating for the last few years, always get excited. “They say ‘it's time to go buy presents for other people, isn't this great?'” Crowe said. “It's rewarding to see that they understand why they're giving.”

While Crowe hasn't heard back personally from any of the children — along with a personal note, volunteers can include mailing addresses — her sister witnessed the impacts the gifts have last year on a trip to Mongolia.

“They were staying in a yurt. The children there were so excited to show my sister their things. When she went back to the little corner where they were sleeping, they pulled out their Operation Christmas Child boxes to show her,” Crowe said. “We wrap shoeboxes, and they save the wrapped shoeboxes. Their special treasures are in those.”

In Summit County, the due date for boxes is Nov. 20 so they can be delivered on time for a pre-holiday arrival. “So that is why we're celebrating Christmas early,” Pfeifer said.

The Plays...

People are always a little amused when they interview at the Garden School when we say we put on two fully costumed and fully acted plays every school year. I tell them that it's important to the children, and they nod and smile...

The truth is, the play is one of the most important things we do at the Garden School. First, it fulfills many of the kindergarten standards, secondly, it allows children to step outside themselves and become someone else in public...and that's fun, but it's also a kind of creativity that begins on the inside of a person and continues all the way out and into an audience.

My theory on Kindergarten is that is most kindergarten curricula should be a project for four year olds because that's when they want it. By five, a child is into his first formative imagination where he directs his mind to explore, experience and dream about what ifs. If a child has the reading and writing skills AT five, he is more likely to be more creative and therefore brighter and therefore more aware...and that train follows right into old age.

Plays encourage the arts, social skills, imagination skills, and group activity. It's not MY play, it's not YOUR play, it's OUR play, and my line is important in the story to get to your line which moves to other lines until we have told our story, made people laugh and had a splendid good learning experience.

Plays are not things one will generally find in most schools because they are hard to do. Enterprising teacher, who think things through, will know that when you produce a play, it generally fulfills a lot of state standards.

But where do you get plays? I write mine, but that's something children can do, many parents would love to do, and even the Internet has plays.

A good play needs to be the length the children can handle. Our first play is about fifteen minutes long. Our Spring play has been a half hour. This is long enough. A play needs to tell a story and have enough dialogue that every child has at least one line. Some children will not deliver a line in public. One year, my grandson held up a sign that said his line because he was terrified. He didn't mind standing on stage, he just didn't want to say anything. By the time he was graduated from the GS, he was a top star.

Don't be afraid of changing lines mid practice. It's good for the kids and it's good for the play. Children should always be comfortable reciting their lines, and they should not fear getting a chuckle from the audience.

We invite parents and grandparents to our plays. It's always a grand time. Children always grow so big during play practice and especially on the performance day.

Plays also bring children together and make the group bonded as no other thing can bond them.

This year, Miss Amy is directing our play. She is doing a fantastic job and the kids are loving it. Can't wait for the end product... November 18 at 2:00!

Just Thinking It Over

This weekend was lovely. My beloved Anne came home to spend a rushed day, and Miss Molly and Anne got to spend some time together and I got some time with Anne...and it caused me to think about my own mother. I loved my mother, there is no doubt, but the mother/daughter gig was not a happy arrangement.

My mother died at ninety-one, and I would say she spent very few days affectionate towards me. She simply did not like me, nor did she wish me well. She was unkind most of the time, humiliating and punishing and rarely approving. She was golden girl of the Alphie Kohn method of parenting, and it did NOT work.

People sometimes talk about spending time - just one more day, hour, lunch, or evening - with someone who has died. I see it on Facebook all the time..."If I could just spend one more day..." Not me. I wouldn't want to spend thirty seconds with either my mother or my father simply because I don't want to spend time with anyone who is constantly unkind to me. It's that simple.

It's the same with friends, husbands, and other relatives and even work environments. Do you really want to spend the time you have been given with people who make fun of you; cut your dialogue off; make you wait in line for any recognition; take phone calls on your time; forget you in all kinds of situations; lose your things? It's really no ones duty to sustain constant insults, belittling, lies, and even taking seconds over and over again for the sake of "family" or the "work environment" or for the sake of an "old friend" simply because you've known them forever? Or even a husband who is rude, unkind or simplistically male?

Over the last year, I've lost three old friends who I've had for at least twenty years...no they didn't die...they simply became so unkind, I decided that the cost was too great to continue the friendships. Do I miss them? Not in the slightest. I can't seem to miss people in my life who are unkind who use me, abuse me and then ignore me.

When I look at the children at the Garden School, I sometimes watch them play, and occasionally I will hear, "If you don't, I won't..." I would love to hear the response, "So what?" or "Go ahead because nobody cares." Children need to have their friendships monitored by loving parents. They need to know when they have taken the friendship on a wrong turn. Children need to learn from the beginning that there are rules about how we treat one another, how to say a "no" if their friend does something un-friendly.

Friendships are meant to be cherished, to be cultivated, to be loved and not to be a stepping stone to another one, or a time waster, or a crutch, or a pathology looking for a place crash. A friendship is companionship; it's a give and take; it's a soft spot in the road of life.

Encouraging real friendships is not only a parent's duty, it's a responsibility. Ask your children who their best friend is and why. Talk about your child's friend at home, and encourage your child to always be kind.

Monday's Tattler

Good Monday!

With our travels over until the Nutcracker in December, it's time to really focus on the play. Play lines have been sent home and it's time for the children to learn to say these lines in the order in which they must be delivered. Memorizing just the line is not going to help. Parents should review the whole scene with their children so that the children know when they are supposed to come in.

It's a process, like anything else.

The play will be at 2:00 (and not 3:00 p.m.) this year on November 18. We have changed the time for the sake of the children. 3:00 p.m. is just too late on a Friday to expect them to do a good job. Fridays are tough enough, but there has always been a "holding tank" between 1:00 and 2:00 when the kids just ran and exhausted themselves and then had to put on their costumes and half of them just wanted to go to sleep. So this year the play is at 2:00 p.m.

Costumes will be provided for every child. Parents are welcome to help with refreshments.

This is going to be one of those warm, then cold, bright, then breezy, dry then wet weeks. long sleeves and jeans work well. Please remember that as the weather gets colder, short sleeves in a heavy coat just doesn't cut the chill. Children need long sleeves to play outside.

Have a brilliant week!

Sunday's Plate - Baked Beans to Die For!

Here's a great new recipe for baked beans. I'm not a bean lover, but Mr. T loves baked beans, so I tried these and they were so good, I would have had them for dessert too!

Soak small white beans over night.

Boil beans until cooked - about an hour.

Reserve 3 cups of bean water. (I forgot to do this the second time I made them. Will let you know how they turned out without this.)

In a crock with a lid that is ovenproof, place beans

7 slices of uncooked bacon cut up into pieces ( use a scissors)

1 very large raw chopped onion

1 cup maple syrup - can be made by boiling 1/3 cup water and 2/3 cup sugar + maple flavoring

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup yellow mustard

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup black pepper

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

Mix in the crock, cover and cook two hours at 350.

These are truly yum.

Friday's Field Trip!

Field trip at 9:30...wear your red sweat shirt and school t shirt. Philharmonic Lollipop Concert.

Lots of fun. Returning to the school at 11:30 for lunch.

Field Trips

Last field trip for the season on Friday, November 4.

Field trips are wonderful for kids and we try to do as many as we can in a safe and exciting way. There have been a lot of field trips lately, and this one on Friday to the Lollipop Concert is no exception to the exciting. We do this every year, and the children love it. We are learning a song from Cinderella, "Bippity Boppity Boo" to sing at the concert.

Field trips are not cheap for either parents or the school. We charge a uniform rate for all field trips regardless of admission or bus fare. This makes it easier for parents and for collectors.

It costs between $150.00 and $1000.00 to take the bus out. Miss Sandy cuts a fabulous deal and is the ONLY driver in EVV who would do what we have asked her to do. She takes us on long fantastic trips anywhere we want to go. I am sure if we said we were going to Disney, she'd be there to drive. She has driven for us for sixteen years.

Every trip is a different expense, and when you add up the costs overall, they work out to about $10.00 per child per trip, so that's why we charge a uniform fee. Also, we never know how many children until we are pulling out of the driveway, so it's really hard to plan otherwise.

All our field trips are teaching. That's why you will never see a trip to put put or Holiday Village or any amusement parks. We go on our field trips to learn, and the children really benefit from these trips. I wish there were a trip every Friday, and there could be...but the kids get so tired. There is, of course, during the summer. We put a protractor on two points: Evansville and St. Louis, and we draw a circle and anything within that circle is fair game, so if you know of something in that circle you think the kids should see, please let us know.

So Friday, the kids should wear their new Garden School field trip shirts or old green shirts, and their red sweatshirts. Those without red sweatshirts will have them tomorrow.

Have a great rainy day!