The Garden School Tattler

It's been a good week. Lots of progress, lots of discovery, and that always makes it a good week. I think the most interesting part about this week was my discovery when Abby said, "I like classroom work best. I like to learn." And that differs dramatically from the local claim that it's inappropriate to even teach colors to children under five.

At the same time, Regio Emila is considered the premier learning technique - but how do you "answer the call to learn" from children who ask if you can't teach? Sounds like more keystone cops to me.

One of the things I learned about my class is that they are a very mixed group. Some know their letters and some don't. We've been playing a lot of alphabet games to strengthen skills. Following directions is another stumbling block to learning. Just listening is something I can see our long time GS kids do very well, but the newer children don't have a clue.

Let's remember as a group of interested parents and teachers that the one, most important preschool tool a child can learn to use well is listening. That's why we use reading to them as a group. The ability to listen in a group is important. It will be the format of all group learning for the next 15 years and the technique begins early - right now.

We've been reviewing numbers to 20. Counting, recognizing, writing, associating amounts with the written number, and what a double digit number really is. Eleven is one ten and one one. Fifteen is one ten and five ones and then we prove it. There are children who grasp this, and children who don't.

Today is portrait day. We will be looking at famous portraits in fine arts today, and then we will learn how to draw a portrait and then we will choose a friend and tackle drawing a portrait of our friend. Should be interesting.

We've been eating well. The clean plate club grows and grows. The kids are trying a lot of new stuff. Yesterday we had chicken pot pie in honor of Hadley's birthday.

Today is a fruit smoothie day. It will be an adventure.

Please watch temperatures and clothes. If it is 68 degrees in the morning and will be 85 degrees from 10:00 a.m. through pick up, your child does not need to wear winter clothes. The hour or two that it is mildly cool is no comparison to the hours your child is spending dying of heat prostration in heavy jeans and long sleeve t-shirts and jackets. A good combination is shorts, t-shirts (with sleeves) and a sweatshirt, socks and shoes.

Next week is our dinosaur week.