The Garden School Tattler

Someone asked about Spring Break. We will be on Spring Break Thursday and Friday of this week. We will go to the zoo on Wednesday until about 2:00. We will picnic at Wesselman Park depending on the weather. This upcoming break is our first since Christmas.

Yesterday we did an obstacle course and bobbed for apples. No matter how often you do this, the kids are never bored with it -soaking wet, yes; bored, no. It's hilarious. There are children who actually have bobbing styles. The bigger boys will throw their heads under the water and come up with an apple every time. The more timid will push the apples to the side and try to get the apple with a biting motion. The smarties will try to get a stem. Then there are the emotional breakdowns where a child will throw himself into tantrum because the apple didn't just pop into his mouth.

The children did some really cute arts and crafts yesterday. They asked to do this, and we encouraged it. Today we will resurrect beading and practice on some lace edges. I would like to introduce knitting or crochet, but I'm not sure they are old enough - let's see. They sure are smart enough.

I think we might create paper dolls today as well. This is something girls can entertain themselves with for a long time.

I love these extra days when the children have grown up enough to really teach the creative arts. People disregard the creative arts because they can "buy" it made. But I always say to the children, you need to know how to sew, to cook, to plant, to make something from nothing because you never know when you will be someplace, even home, when the lights will go out for a long long time, and we need to know what to do and how to do it. I once wrote a passage in one of my novels about embroidery and how the intricate stitching is useful to mend clothes as well as decorate.

We are in the process of recruiting new students. We have new brochures and new bulletin board posters. If you have a bulletin board at work or you have a place we can put our brochures, please let us know. The more students we have the lower the tuition.