The Garden School Tattler

It was play day today. Play as in drama. Once the fog of Monday cleared, the kids had fun with it. They laughed a lot and thought some of the lines were really funny.

We are doing our usual St. Patrick's Day Play - the little gem we've done for years, but this year, we made it bigger and funnier. We encourage the children to really ham it up. Drama is only fun if they get to do it their way. Every child loves being in the spotlight, and this play allows children to do just that. There will be lots of costumes and funny backdrops.

We'll present the play on Friday just after St. Patrick's Day at 3:00 p.m.

It's the story of the Big Angel War and the division of good and evil. It's the story of the wee wonders also called Leprechauns who ducked during the BAW and were cast onto earth to find something good to do and redeem themselves so they could go back to Heaven.

It's a story about St. Patrick and snakes and Druids and people. The snakes sing - Slithery Snakes to the tune of Chattanooga Choo choo.

Now, if the children will all learn their lines, we'll have a fair go at something fun and productive.

Learning lines means practice at home. Parents should help children with lines. The lines will be sent home as soon as we make sure that the line fits the child - probably on Wednesday.

Otherwise, school was kind of gray today - a lot like the weather.

One of the new favorites is the Tutankhamen puzzle. The boys just love the beautiful puzzles in this really nice puzzle book. It's in my classroom.

Speaking of my classroom, we started words today. We looked at boy, girl, man, woman. The children had to read and match. They did very well.

Please take note of the stories my children are writing in class. The artwork is just wonderful and the "almost" sentences they are writing are a great beginning.

We had spaghetti today with cottage cheese, bread and butter, bananas and pears and a big cheesy salad. The kids love cornflakes in their salad - makes it crunch.

With all this talk about pre-K for all, it's funny to see how pre-K students differ. We have children who have been five for a long time still in the nursery school. We have children who are the same age in my Kindergarten class, and still more that age in the first grade. Some children are ready and some are not. Putting a very young four into a public program will be a nightmare.