The Garden School Tattler

We've been out of classrooms because of the book fair this week, but we've been working on some think games with the big kids. Yesterday we put the children to work. We worked on our garden moving mulch. They had a grand time. And when the job was done, they each got a reward and we had an orange juice party. The best carriers were Nikolai, Adyson and Aidan. We were thrilled with the work done by Brady and Emma. They were outstanding.

Some of Miss Kelly's girls helped her set up the books. It looks wonderful. It will be hard not to buy a lot of books. There is a beach theme this year.

Then in the afternoon, we listened to a lot of stories and talked about them. Then we played a new game - word it. The children each received a big sheet of paper with letters, and they were to color letter blocks to make words. Most of the kids made about eight words. These are children who should not even know their letters by local "day care" standards.

We played a game of letter and sound recognition on Monday and both Phoebe and Emma age 3 knew many of the letters and the sounds and were eager to participate.

Today we are going to work on handwriting and story making. You can't do this kind of thing if the kids aren't "there." Miss Kelly is a gem who has really taught these children a lot. I am truly grateful to her. These children will move onto first grade in a lot of different schools and be at the top of their classes.

This last month of school is review, games, parties on the spur, and rewards, rewards, rewards. Throw Alfie Kohn over the fence a stick. That's PA Dutch for the sky is the limit!