The Garden School Tattler

Near Question: I see that you can't post a thought on this blog without getting belittled.

Who is "you" and what constitutes thought?

What we try to teach the children at the Garden School is the vast human difference between thoughtless knee-jerk reactions - impulses, and truly thoughtful impressions, questions and responses. It takes a few weeks for some children to catch on, but there is a difference, and learning the difference at 3,4,5,6 and 7 gives any child a big head start.

Responsibility is another misnomer in the world today. The idea that I take responsibility for my thoughts words and deeds is all but gone, and the blame is always someone else's. It's tantamount to tattling. It's never my fault, and I never meant, and I was only. HMMMM. I never inhaled.

Communication is an act of love. Whether it is affection or admonition, everything we do should be done because we love. Is our brief time worth spending on hostility and hatred? I don't think so.

Today was another gorgeous day. We are expecting rain tomorrow. We had lunch on the patio. We started reading a book about Tinkerbell who is the pot and pans fairy. It's well done.

My little champions are dashing through math and reading like pros. Today we tackled: this, that, is, a, an, and, but, the, and the number words. Most of the children know the printed number word because of the hints that each word has: One has one little head. Two has two cross bars, three has ee at the end, four has one, two, three, four letters, five has an Ichabod with one eye, six has two sticks, seven has a hallow on the s to rhyme with heaven, eight has a number eight in it, nine is that ninnie number, and ten is easy because we can sound it out.

Our printing is fabulous, and the spacing is coming along nicely.

We pointed out Chile, the Gulf of Mexico and South Africa today. I'm sharing some of the book I'm reading at home with the children. It's about whaling and South Sea travel and adventure. It was published in the 30s.

Homemade cookies for snack - chocolate chip with granola.

The rest of the day was uneventful.