Friday's Tattler

It was a crazy week. Teachers were out with illness, family matters, and just keeping staff in the building was a touch and go experience. Only once in a very long time does this happen. Everyone pitched in and helped with covering, and it worked out fine. We got a lot accomplished this week!

This past week we worked on manners, "thank you and please," to be exact. As Mr. Terry said, "Manners are an essential for every child to take with them from the Garden School." I think he has a point. So we are asking every child to be polite every day in every way. It's made a lovely difference.

At the same time, we have put a new golden light on the medal. The medal is worn by honorable children. Some consistently poor behavior is simply never honorable, so the medals have been taken away until behavior changes. We think this will serve our entire group.

We have begun a new game called "Spit Spot." At play times, we ring the bell and every child stops in his play, stands and looks at the bell ringer. The ringer then chooses a child who is closest to his spot and asks the child an academic question. If the child answers, the reward is a biggie. If there is no medal, there is no prize. We hope this encourages a sense of "wanting to keep the medals."

Book Fair has been set up for next week in Miss Kelly's class. Please feel free to browse for books in her room. We have a lay a way program for people who are paid on Fridays. Please feel free to ask a teacher for a lay away bag.

Next week is Earth Week. We will be doing several things with this theme. Miss Elise has already worked on our butterfly project. She is raising butterflies from the larva to the fly. The kids are thrilled with what they have learned so far.

Miss Molly wants to recycle. That's a green light for me, but the company who takes our trash does not recycle businesses. We are going to try to buy some containers and separate some of our trash and see how this works. We will need some hoddies to the recycle places. Not sure how this is going to work.

I am going to try to start putting our garden in today. Please visit our garden with your children to watch how things are going. It's a hillbilly garden because a traditional garden is too hard for me to keep up. I got this design from a country boy from Arkansas years ago who attended St. Meinrad Seminary. He told a delightful story about gardening and I am copying what he said.

On Wednesday, we are having "Favorite Book Character Day." Please let your child dress up as his favorite book character and wear his costume that day. I am going as Catherine Earnshaw. Not sure who the other teachers are going to be, but it should be fun. Please keep masks to a minimum, and keep weapons at home.

Spring sing is this coming Friday. It begins, as all our events, at 3:00 p.m. and will last throught the party. Children will sing, and then parents are free to visit the goodie table and the Book Fair. We hope to see all of you there! Please remember that every child needs an attending adult.

Have a great weekend!