The Garden School Tattler

This is going to be a busy week at school. The book fair books will be arriving Tuesday for set up and I'm thinking the older children might be able to help. It's always fun to see what's new in the book store especially if the book store is in your classroom.

Spring Sing is this week. It's Friday at 3:00. Miss Amy has been working with the children. The kids seem to really like the songs she's chosen to sing with them. Even the youngest children seem to take enormous pleasure in rattling off the names of all the states. This has always been my job, and this year it's a pleasure to give the project to another teacher.

Every so often a really excellent teacher falls into your lap. It's nearly always by accident and it's always a surprise. Amy came to us in a pinch, and in the last several weeks, her talent and her love and her enthusiasm has put her into that category of excellent teacher. Her ideas are refreshing. Through Amy's connections, the Master Gardeners have taken over our summer planting and the kids are delighted with their own gardens.

Amy is one of those people for whom work is a pleasure and the result is a delight. Her possibilities are endless and the children are thrilled with her schemes.

Because of excellent staffing this year, Summer will be endless. We are not taking a week this summer. We are starting mid May and doing summer from Mid May right to Mid August. We spent most of Friday morning talking about the possibilities of field trips. The schedule is astounding.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, teachers will be teaching regular school through games and writing projects, but we will also be teaching crafts and fine arts. We've tried to do this summer after summer, but this year, we've attached a summer theme to field trips and the projects will be a week long. Some of the projects will be cooking for real, sewing stitches that hold, scrapbooking for keeps, photography from the eye of the artist, jewelry making that lasts, baseball, embroidery for design, painting like the masters, sculpting with clays and paper mache.
Anyway, all of it is hot in the works and when we get our bus schedule, we will be sending home a calendar of when, where, why, how and what and rules.

Our summer plan is to offer children a real summer vacation.