Hello!
We had a great first week of 2019!
On Tuesday we celebrated Lucan's 7th birthday with song and candle and strawberry oatmeal cake and gifts of rock, shell, feather, and treasure. The HomeSchool students each gave their reptile presentation and did a fine job with it. I've attached some photos of their drawings. We visited with our school turtle, a male yellow-bellied slider named Gerta. I started reading to them from the book Unlikely Friendships, 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom, by Jennifer Holland. These true short stories are about animal companions of different species, like the black bear and black cat that we read about.
On Thursday, it was Trains, Trains, Trains at The Garden School. Ki Richard and Ki Josh from the Southern Museum in downtown Kennesaw set up four train layouts in the Blue Sky Room. Every student in the school, including the Joyful Beginnings toddler class, got a chance to see and hear and learn about the trains. A BIG thankyou to Richard for organizing this. That night I dreamed that Larry and I took a train ride across the country encountering coal cars and railway switching yards along the way! Be sure to take the opportunity to attend the Trains, Trains, Trains event at the Southern Museum coming up January 26th and 27th, 9:30 to 5:00 each day.
On Thursday we also ate our lunch in the garden, fed apple slices to the donkeys and goats, and played Freeze Tag in the rain. We are working on carving out a new trail that wraps around the pond from the pond overlook to the Daisy Cottage. It is walkable but still rough and slippery in places.
This week in Girl Scouts we had a great time and made a big mess as we worked together in the Blue Sky Room. We crreated pinecone bird feeders packed full of peanut butter, birdseed, and blueberries. We hung these on trees around the school campus to help the birds make it through these next few cold weeks. We made sugar cookies and frosting from scratch and delivered them to fire stations and police departments as a thank you for their service to our community.
I've postponed our gyotaku fish printing activity til Tuesday, January 29th to give everyone a chance to bring in a plain white t-shirt for your child. Some kids may have outgrown the shirt you brought to me in August so you may need to bring a new one.
This Tuesday we will do the Build-A-Fish activity and receive our Fishing Lines saltwater fish guidebooks. Each student will choose a fish from the guidebook to draw. Two students will help me with the monthly water quality monitoring of Noonday Creek.
Thursday we will have our first Creature Feature of the new year. Tess Yaney will share her amphibians and reptiles with us. I will read more stories from the Unlikely Friendships book. Ollie will take us on our next student-led hike.
Quote from a child: "Is this when we add the vanilla abstract?"
Quote from Mitch Hedberg: "On the fishing shows on TV they catch the fish and then let it go. They don't want to eat the fish; they just want to make it late for something!"
Thanks to all of you for your kindness and support.
Stay warm and dry,
Ki Sonya
