Grades April 16 - 20

Hi Garden Families,

The students have been practicing and are working hard to get ready for our class play this Saturday at 2:00pm. In class, the Lower grades worked on the golden apple props and their own fairy tales in their master books. The Upper grades are working on grammar, including parts of speech and spelling.  The Grades class also completed repairs and maintence on our forest shelter as well as continued developing our herb garden by planting chives and lettuce seeds.  All children have enjoyed learning about the life of honeybees as well as song birds, which they modeled using clay. In Music we have been learning songs for our family tea in May.  Congrats to Amelia for finishing her knitted hat! 

We are looking forward to Saturday!  Please have your child to the school by 1:00pm.  The performance starts at 2:00pm.  As customary with Waldorf plays, we ask that you refrain from taking videos or photographs during the performance. 

Warmly, 

Ki Melissa and Ki Kathee

At Creekcess on Tuesday, we used the swing to cross from one side of the creek to the other, getting thoroughly wet.

At Nature Study with Ki Sonya, we did an archaeology dig in the sand box and the sand boat. We found bones, antlers, shells, crystals, fossils, and Native American artifacts. We cleaned them and laid them out on a grid as we had found them so we could record their locations.

At the Environmental Art Festival, we walked the new art ribbon trail that winds through the pine forest and the mowed right of way. Students from our school and from three local art studios entered artwork that they had completed. We also displayed our Nature at Night wildlife posters and our tile mosaics. We looked at the art displayed all along the trail and voted for our three favorites. Then we ate lunch outside at the picnic tables.

Grades January 22 - 26

Hi Garden Families,

The Lower grades spent a lot of time with numbers.  Our goal in this block is to be able to calculate simple mathematical functions - adding, subtracting, multiplying (grouping), and dividing (how did we group) using the numbers 1-100.  We started with 1-20 and will continue to add 20 each week.  Most of our work was done using manipulatives - beads, acorns, wooden blocks, abacus, number line, and place value sheets.  On Friday, the students had a page of calculations to answer using the symbols for adding.  If you find teachable moments at home, I encourage you to ask them to do some mental math and problem solving using math.

The Upper grades class dove right into focusing on the four processes in mathematics.  The students enjoyed the challenge!  The equations are geared to each child’s ability level and then we work to progress from there.  We also revisited place value, naming numerals and values within the numerals as well as writing out values with words.  We played math games using both dice and cards.  Please continue working with your child/ren on memorizing their basic math facts.  Once they have them down, it allows them to focus on higher level math more easily, rather than be slowed down by basic calculations.  Thank you!

All grades enjoyed wet-on-wet painting rainbows where they experimented with blending colors.  They also are at the beginning stage in Landscape Art where we will eventually be creating mosaics on cinder blocks.  The students diligently worked on creating their spheres in woodworking and we began modeling spheres with clay as well.  We began a unit on Anti-Bias and Advocacy this week with all the students.  We started with ourselves.  They drew a picture of themselves, and as they drew we had opportunities to talk about color - skin, eyes, hair, etc.  In the next session, they will make lists of the things they like and draw pictures of their families.  From families we will move to community, and in the process, we will be discussing the validation of each person, each person's family, and the community that we live in.  Finally, in Music the Upper grades began to learn the diatonic flute.  The Lower grades continued to explore the sound of their voices and how to sing; they are learning solfegiotto, which will lead to an understanding of musical notation, and they sang some singing games.  All students are learning a song for the Candlemas celebration next Thursday; we hope you can join us!        

Warmly,

Ki Melissa and Ki Kathee 

The grades students created pinecone bird feeders with peanut butter, sunflower seeds, safflower seeds, millet, dried mealworms, and blueberries. We hung them from trees throughout the school's 15 acres to help the birds make it through the rest of the winter.

Ki Vicky, a wildlife biologist, shared her bat facts, bat stories, and live bats with us in the first of our weekly Creature Features.

The Garden School Water Kids did their first water quality monitoring of 2018. We completed a visual stream survey of our little stretch of Little Noonday Creek and submitted the information to Georgia Adopt-A-Stream.

Grades Nov 13 - 17

Hi Garden Families,

We had a busy week at school!  The children enjoyed taking care of the animals in the garden, prepping food in the kitchen, pumpkin bowling in Games class, playing games in Spanish, and helping to complete the shelter the Grades class built together in the forest!  

Our Shelter block came to a close Friday.  The children all worked hard building the shelter in the woods using natural materials.  Ms. Kathee led us in a house blessing on Friday and we enjoyed corn roasted in the fire the students helped build and tend, as well as brownies.  The children also brought in the shelters they built at home and shared what they learned with their classmates.  It was wonderful and we thank you all for your time and hard work!  Ms. Jas is checking to see if we can display the shelters somewhere in our community (a local library?) before we return them to your child. 

Following break, we will begin our final block of this semester sharing “Stories of Light” as we hear stories from a variety of cultures of how and why they celebrate this time of the year.  There will be a lot of crafting during this block too!  We will be preparing for our Advent Spiral that is being held during the school day on December 14th (you are all invited to join us!).  The Lower Grades will also spend time focusing on the four processes in math and the Upper Grades on fractions as well.   

We hope you all have a safe and happy time together celebrating with family this week!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Nov 6 - Nov 10

Hi Garden Families,

Thank you all so much for sharing our fun and lovely festival, Martinmas, with us this past week!  It was so wonderful to have us all come together for the evening!  The help and support you all gave, as well as the delicious food, made it truly enjoyable for all!  Our next festival will be our Advent Spiral on December 14th.  We hope to see you all there too!

This past week we learned about the tipi’s of the Plains people, igloos of the Inuit people and log cabins built by early settlers.  Next week we will explore shelters built in other regions of our world.  The children have been hard at work on our Grades shelter in the forest as well.  Shelter models and the reports about the shelters are due by next Friday. 

The children also completed their lantern making (and they turned out beautifully!), practiced songs, flute and drums for Martinmas, continued working on making wooden balls from cubes, made more pickles in the kitchen (as well as enjoying eating those they made previously), continued both reviewing and learning new Spanish words and phrases, and had fun drawing the animals well as building a climbing platform for the animals on our learning farm.  We are also beginning to make small group visits Thursday mornings with the Kindergarten to work and play with our younger friends, a benefit for all ages! 😊

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Oct 30 - Nov 3

Hi Garden Families,

It was a busy Halloween week at school!  The children began their Shelter’s block and are beginning their own shelter building in the forest with Mr. Lee and Ms. Kathee.  During this block, we will look all be learning about several types of shelters from around the world.  We are also each asked to create a model of a shelter at home and to write a short report about their shelter to share the last day of class before Thanksgiving break.  All are welcomed to participate!  We also began wood working this week with Mr. Lee; the children are focusing on using rasps and vices to form wooden cubes into balls.  Thank you to the parents who donated hammers and goggles from our wish list! 

Martinmas is just around the corner (November 9) and the children have been practicing a flute song with Ms. Kathee and we will be learning a few more songs this week and next as well.  Ms. Nina taught us correct place setting skills, Mr. Lee helped us to make tinder bundles for our morning fires at the playground, and we learned and celebrated the Day of the Dead with Don Andreas. 

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Oct 23 - 27

Dear Garden Families,

It was a fun and busy week as we finished our current blocks of Jataka Tales and Human and Animal.  The Lower Grades enjoyed the stories, crafts, drawings, summarizing stories and writing their own reader book.  They also acted out the story of The Hare in the Moon for the Upper Grades class and did a great job!  The Upper Grades had fun crafting, knitting reins on a lucent, casting deer tracks as well as learning to draw animals and writing about the various animals we read about.  The class also finished up their respective blocks creating unique animal quatrains (four-lined poems) with a partner and made animal nests using natural materials with Mr. Lee.

Starting Tuesday, we will begin a combined Grades block of Shelters Around the World for the next three week which will include a project completed at home as well as building a shelter together in the forest with Ms. Kathee and Mr. Lee.

This past week all the students enjoyed being together both inside for our rainy day and outside too!  We jumped rope by fours, played hopscotch by threes, used beanbags for math games and began pentatonic flute lessons with Ms. Kathee.  The children also wrote in their journals about various topics, worked in the garden, planted bulbs around the school entry, made sauerkraut and pickles and collected native plants for brewing tea at home to name a few of the fun activities.

Please remember to send your child with rubber boots for our creek play and thank you all for sending them with the necessary layers for our changing weather!  It is much more fun to be outside when we are dressed for it!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Oct 16 - 20

Hi Garden Families,

It is so nice to welcome in our cooler weather!  Please be sure your child/ren wear clothing appropriate for cooler mornings and warmer afternoons.  Also, now is the time to swap out water shoes for rubber boots as we will still being enjoying trips to the creek.  Finally, please label all you can of your child/ren’s outer wear.  It’s a big help for those items that get left behind during the day. 😊

We all enjoyed the week at school.  In Nature Study, the students learned and drew about invasive and native plants, while in Handwork the children worked steadily on their knitting.  It’s wonderful to see how much they have progressed so far this year!  In Spanish the children continue to play large and small group games while immersed in Spanish.  There is lots of laughter involved!  The first flute class was a great success as the students practiced one of the songs we will be singing at Martinmas on November 9th.  

This past week the children also wet felted hedgehogs as we continued our Human and Animal block and casted deer hoof prints found outside near our creek with Mr. Lee.  They wrote about the various animals as well as drew about them in their Master Books.  During the Jataka Tales block the students completed their reader books about cats and continued hearing, drawing and writing about the various tales.  The children also made wreaths out of kudzu as well as planted an herb garden for Ms. Nina with Ms. Kathee.

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Aug 21 -25

Hi Garden Families,

We had a fun week spending time in the kitchen with Ms. Nina.  We learned about various kitchen tools and food prep safety rules.  We also have fun getting busy to help prep foods for lunch!  If your child doesn’t have a hairnet yet, please make sure to provide one.  The students will continue spending time in the kitchen all throughout the school year.