The Garden School Tattler

Today is supposed to be a beautiful sunny day. It's also supposed to be warm. These are great days for the kids to play outside. And children should play outside as much as possible. Without the restraints of classroom walls, without the artificial light, children can enjoy a kind of freedom that builds self confidence and creativity.

Mrs. St. Louis always says, "The more time kids spend at their desks, the worse the test scores are." This is based on the idea that we need time to secure what we have learned. We need a time to relax and think about things, and learning one thing on top of another is like too many toppings on ice cream - it just becomes muck.

That's one reason we have year round school. There is always something to learn, and making that fun among the summer adventures is the task to be achieved. It might be the concept of mazes; it might be a study of the composition of the Earth; it might be paper mache; it might be a new math concept, but learning should always continue and so should recreation.

Today is report card day at school. Then we complete the last in school report card period. We have finished our winter program and considering the weather, we are eagerly anticipating putting in the garden and cleaning up the pond, and fixing the playground moving outside a little at a time. Academically, we will be pushing the limits.

Spring sing is at the end of the month with a giant book sale from Scholastic. We are the smallest school in the country doing this book sale. We receive the same books that a regular sized public school receives, and we do an excellent job.

We are still pulling together our summer program and details will be sent out soon. One of our problems is that gas has skyrocketed. Miss Sandy pays nearly $4.00 per nine miles. So that means our costs go up. The engineering of summer takes a lot of effort. But we believe that children in summer should go, go, go, and many children will not have this chance if it is not done at school. It is our pleasure to provide this opportunity.

More later!