Grades February 12 - 16

Hi Garden Families,

It was a full conference week and we enjoyed meeting with and talking with all of you about your child(ren)/our students! 😊 Thank you for making the time and effort to join us!

The Grades classes kept busy for the last week of our Mathematics block. The Lower grades completed their journey of 0-100.  They also continued working with money, focusing on pennies and nickels. The Upper grades spent more time with multiplication and division as well as working with equivalent and improper fractions and mixed numbers (which were delicious as we used brownies as a mathematical prop;).  Both classes will continue to focus on these math concepts in the coming weeks, mainly during our afternoon practical periods. 

In our next block, Ki Melissa will be working with the Lower grades in a fairy tale block based on James Thurber’s magical book, The 13 Clocks (full-time students—do not read ahead!!! 😊). During this block we will be working on conventions of grammar, sight words and spelling, parts of a story and creating our own fairy tale. Ki Kathee will join the Upper grades for the Norse Myths block, working on many of the same concepts with the class at a higher level.  Both will include art projects based on the reading.  We are excited to get started!

We hope you are enjoyed your “winter” break!  Get and/or stay healthy!  Spring is alive and well!

Warmly,

Ki Melissa and Ki Kathee

Grades February 5 - 9

Hello Garden Families,

The Grades students had a busy week at school.  The Lower grades are up to 80, worked on writing the one’s times table and will work through the two’s and three’s times tables this week.  The Upper grades continued working with the four processes and also reviewed  and learning more about fractions during our main lesson time.  On Thursday, all grades students are joining Ki Jas and Don Andres downstairs to make items to sell at our Springtide festival and in the school store.  The children are working in groups to plan and create products, signage and crafts.  In Handwork, the children are working on both knitting and crocheting depending on their grades.  In the Garden, they are readying beds both outside the church and in the garden itself for spring planting.  We also enjoyed several outings into the forest to study and play during the day and while there we tested the creek water with Ki Sonya, built a bridge and played many games during Spanish with Don Andres, made twig frames with Ki Kathee, learned about the wind with Ki Melissa and enjoyed some fun at the creek in the warm sun!

Please remember appropriate weather clothes and rain gear for the week!

We look forward to meeting with you for conferences! 😊

Warmly,

Ki Melissa and Ki Kathee

This week the grades students learned more about snakes and their color patterns. We made snake bracelets with beads, representing the coral snake, the scarlet king snake, and the milk snake. We prepared a garden bed for planting onions. We felt different animal coats and talked about how they help an animal stay warm in winter. During the Wednesday Creature Feature program, Ki Kim and Ki Tim shared their two greyhounds, Riley and Max, and taught us about the greyhound rescue program in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida.

Ki Sonya

Grades January 29 - Feb 2

Hi Garden Families,

In the Lower grades, numbers, numbers, numbers abound!  The first and second grades have been counting, adding, subtracting, and grouping numbers 1-60, and next week well be adding 20 more!  This week they played several games that require addition and subtraction, and we continued to count by 5s and 10s.  The Upper grades continued working on the four processes through copying and solving practice problems as well as playing various card games to practice speed for our math facts.  The children are adding and subtracting into the thousands places, multiplying two digit numerals times one digit numerals and working on seeing the connection between multiplying and dividing.  Using dice to add, subtract and multiply is a great way to get faster with math facts as well as card games and flash cards which directly supports working with higher level math skills.  We will continue our practice next week. 

All grades are continuing with Spanish class.  This semester the children are now having Upper and Lower grades classes as well as whole group class time with Ki Andres.  The children are enjoying using mosaic tiles to create designs that will be used to decorate the garden.  We spent time again working on creating spheres of clay using only our hands.  Ki Sonya introduced us to Ki Michael who showed us Kernal the corn snake and the children learned interesting information about various local snakes.  In Anti-Bias/Advocacy the children made list of their favorite things, and then we took a survey to see what the most popular favorite thing was.  It was food, with activities coming in a close second.  😊

We look forward to seeing you at our parent meeting Tuesday evening!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades students created poems and artwork for the Georgia River of Words contest. The houses from around the world that we built last semester are going to be displayed at public libraries throughout Cobb County.

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 January 16 - 19

Hello Garden Families,

We almost had a start back to school 😊, but we will try again this Monday!  

The next block for both the Upper and Lower Grades will focus on mathematics.  We will be practicing the four processes (and continue fractions for the Upper Grades) through a variety of games and activities as well as direct instruction.  We will continue our many other specials and activities and are looking forward to seeing everyone together again!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Dec 11 - 15

Hi Garden Families,

We had a fun-filled last week  before break at school!  We wrapped up our Stories of Light block.  The Upper Grades children shared information about Sweden and Norway as well as about various ancient places created specifically for honoring the Solstice.  We also celebrated St. Lucia’s Day by making wreathed crowns and candles as well as bringing cookies to all around our school.

Thursday's Advent Spiral and performance were lovely and we thank all of you for attending and helping us to make it all go smoothly!

We enjoyed our final Games class having egg races and egg tossing with Mr. Lee.  He will be greatly missed and fondly remembered! 

We also want to thank each of you for sharing with us your most precious gifts, your children, this first semester.  We have felt truly blessed to be sharing each day with them.   

Have a safe, warm and happy holiday season!

With Love and Light,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Dec 4 - Dec 8

Hi Garden Families,

We had a fun and busy week!  The children are enjoying the Stories of Light, stories from around the globe.  The upper grades children have been doing some research at home and sharing about various places and their geographical make-up.  It’s been fun having them help “teach”!  The upper grades children will also be sharing about a particular spot in the world where an ancient culture observed and celebrated the sun’s path through the sky this Friday.

We had a fun time in the snow Friday and enjoyed our long weekend of adventure!  This Thursday, we hope to see you all at our school Advent Festival and are planning a school sing-along for !

Warmly,

Melissa and Kathee

Grades Nov 27 - Dec 1

Hi Garden Families,

We had a lovely start to our “Stories of Light” block.  The children enjoyed the stories Ms. Kathee began sharing from around the world.  This week the upper grade students began to share information with the class they learned about various regions in the world, and will continue to do so over the next two weeks.  During this block we are working on spelling, sentence structure, conventions of grammar and writing paragraphs.  The lower grades are working with Ms. Melissa and the upper grades with Ms. Kathee.  In the afternoons, the lower grades are focusing on telling time while the upper grades are learning about fractions, and all are finishing up morning work in language and crafting for the holidays.  The children made beeswax candles, continued working on their woodworking project and copied and colored a native Hawaiian pattern.

This past week some children helped build bluebird houses in the garden, others helped re-package our sauerkraut and pickles as well as prep lunch, drew native plants and animals to participate in a drawing contest, wrote in their journals, practiced our verse and songs, flute and instruments for our Advent Spiral, learned and sang in Spanish while some children completed projects they have been diligently working on in Handwork!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

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 Oct 9 - 13

Hi Garden Families,

Thank you all for a week of interesting and insightful conferences. We have enjoyed your children so much and it was lovely getting to share about their days and experiences in and out of school. 

We had a fun week that went by too fast!  The lower and upper grades continued working on their respective blocks of Jataka Tales and Human and Animal as well as working on mathematics. We began working on our Martinmas lanterns, cared for the animals and had fun combining Spanish class with helping and  learning in the kitchen.

In other news:  😊

Upper grades book reports are due the next two Mondays (Oct 16th and 23rd).  Please feel free to help guide your child as needed to include relevant information.  They enjoyed sharing in class about the life of their famous person and were excited to chose a new book.  If you need paper or supplies, please let us know.

We have decided to replace morning nature journals with Music time such as pentatonic flute lessons.  We are journaling in the afternoons with guided topics and feel that will be the best move forward for our class.

The Grades have posted a Wish List to support our Learning Farm and Garden activities and our coming Shelter block.  Kindergarten has a Wish List as well.  Please check them out and see the respective class teachers if you have any questions.  Thank you so much!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Oct 2 - 6

Hi Garden Families,

We had a fun week last week!  The children enjoyed creek play, gardening (some children built a bridge!), math with Ms. Roxanne and cooking with Ms. Nina (the students learned to use a mandolin!).  In Spanish the children have been playing team guessing games that involve lots of cheering and laughter.  

We have also begun our Human and Animal block and our Jataka Tales blocks.   The upper grades are learning how humans and animals are similar and not so similar.  We also studied beavers with Mr. Lee and they students built their own dam as well as made their own beaver sticks (carrots).  The lower grades have made their own readers as well as enjoyed the stories with Ms. Kathee.

Please be prepared for our rainy weather this week!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Sept 18 - 22

Hi Garden Families,

We had a lovely week as we finished up both our Native Peoples and Beowulf blocks. The children really enjoyed the stories that accompanied this Language block. 

The Festival of Courage was great fun!  The Grades students did a fabulous job sharing their poem.  The grades 3-5 students did an excellent job with the bells too. Thank you to Ms. Kathee for preparing and leading the class for the poem and the bells!

Have a fun and safe fall break!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Sept 11 - 15

Hi Garden Families,

It was a short week following our stormy weather, but we made the most of it!  The children were happy to be together again and enjoyed their time in handwork, gardening, nature study, music and painting.  The students have been really picking up on Spanish and have enjoyed touring the campus and garden while  learning names of all these places in Spanish this past week.  The students also worked more on math skills as well as language through either Native American stories or Beowulf.

This coming Thursday we will celebrate the Day of Courage.  Please join us if you can outside on our field at 2:00!

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Classes Sept 5 - 8

Hi Garden Families, 

We had a busy, fun week at school, making the most of our short week. 
Grades One and Two began their block of Native American stories. They enjoyed drawing, painting and writing about the stories as well as having lots of fun building word families together.


Grades Three, Four and Five began their block of Beowulf. They revisited the Vimala (cursive) alphabet and began recording summaries based on the stories as well as modeling with clay and drawing pictures.

The Garden is looking wonderful and the animals are happy to see the children when they come!  Spanish class is lots of fun as the children are immersed in the language through games such as Pato, Pato, Ganso.  They enjoyed singing and dancing in music with Ms. Kathee and wet-on-wet painting based on their class stories with Ms. Melissa. 

The mornings are now much cooler (Yay!:).  Please send your child with layers that they can easily shed as the days warm back up. 

Warmly,

Ms. Melissa and Ms. Kathee

Grades Aug 28 - Sept 1

Dear Garden Families,

We had a lovely, and sometimes wet, week in the Grades class.  Thank you for sending your children ready for our wet weather!  While we tend to stay in during heavy rain, there are times when a rain walk is a great experience or we go outside while it is still very wet, so those boots and raincoats are needed.

We enjoyed our final week of our cooking block with Ms. Nina.  The children made and ate pasta and enjoyed their kombucha drink as well.  Starting next week, we will be in the kitchen with Ms. Nina in rotating groups on Mondays and Thursdays.  Please be sure your child has a hairnet of some kind stored in their backpacks. 

Students in grades Three and up chose biography books based on short blurbs describing an event in the famous person’s childhood.  They didn’t know whom they were picking until they got their book, which made it fun and surprising for the children.  We will be sending home master book paper next Thursday.  Please let us know if your child needs a loaner box of block crayons.  Grades One and Two will share in the book report experience starting next month!  

Have a lovely long weekend!

Happy Labor Day,

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.