The Garden School Tattler

It was a fantastic day – a brilliant blue sky, a gentle slightly chill breeze, birds flying, cat screaming, children enjoying the sunshine, and we had a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and apple slices on the patio.

After a brief faculty meeting – I mean where else can you have a staff meeting wearing blue jeans, a pink bandana and sandals with huge blue chrysanthemums while you drink a variety of health drinks, chocolate velvet coffee, and lemon water?

Here’s how a Garden School Faculty meeting sounds:

“So what do you want to do about the farm field trip?”
“Miss Judy, Miss Judy, watch me go across the monkey bars.”
“Call Sandy and,”
"Can I have the next quarter, Miss Judy?”
“Yes, if I have one.”
“See how much it will cost to,”
“Miss Stacey will you tie my shoe?”
“Can I go to the bathroom?”
“I don’t know, can you?”Giggle
“Why can’t we go to the pumpkin patch?”
“What’s a crinoid, Mrs. St. Louis?”
“It’s a fossil, a plant that’s turned to stone.”
“We can go anywhere you want.”
“Can I go to the bathroom?”
“Did you hear about our toy contest voting?”
“I want my jacket.”
“I told you to bring it out with you.”
“What about the Stay Alive House?”
“That’s on October 12th.”
“What time?”
“When are we going in?”
“Shortly.”
“Shortly? I’m not shortly.”
“Has everyone done their report cards?”
“Miss Molly, watch.”
“Somebody’s crying. Who’s crying?”
“Seth threw rocks.”
“Seth don’t throw rocks.”
“I finished the last cards ten minutes ago.”
“What about the voting?”
“David’s mom said her office collected 2400 votes.”
“He hit me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
"Well next time, find out.”
“Miss Rachel can you help me with the sounds of the letters?”
“What are we doing for fine art today?”
“When we go in.”
“He hit me.”
“Well you’re not crying, so you must be tattling.”
“If we go to the Stay Alive House and the Pumpkin patch,”
“My mommy bought a pumpkin today.”
“What color was it?”
“Orange,” Giggle.
“Miss Judy has a big orange cat named Clonmacnoise.”
Giggle
“So it’s settled.”
“Sure, mosaics. You’ll love it, I promise.”
“What’s the mess like?”
“Look, Mrs. St. Louis, I cleaned up all the cups.”
“Good, you get candy.”
“Can today be a fudge day?”
“How about chocolate sundaes?”
"MMMM.”
“Rice and beans and macaroni and dry cereal. You’ll be cleaning till next Thursday.”
“What’s on the shopping list today?”
“I need popsicles… and paper towels and cat food and … After the very successful faculty meeting, Mrs. St. Louis taught a brilliant lesson on mosaics and then we passed out little tag board cards and all kinds of dry stuff and glue pots and paint brushes. It was a complete disaster. We’ll work on it. In fact, the disaster taught me that it’s a must do till they get it. We threw away the mess.

I read one of my favorite stories, The Scrubious Pip and every child was perfect. It’s a Lear poem and the drawings in the book are delightful. Some of the more artistic children couldn’t look at the pictures long enough. “I think he’s a man,” said Ty who got a big prize. He was the only child who understood that it’s a creation story.

We had pizza and apples, and oranges and bananas and milk on the patio and spent a generous part of the afternoon doing karaoke. The kids love it and get to try out all their songs. Fridays are relaxed and the kids go home after ice cream sundaes – I made the chocolate sauce from scratch – feeling satisfied and ready for a weekend.

And that’s the way it was.