Kindergarten April 16 - 20

This week was all about our three ducklings! We are enjoying them so much. 

Ki Azar read us some great stories this week in storytime.

In our Nature Moment, we went with Ki Sonya on a walk to explore the edge of the wetlands.

On Tuesday we celebrated Aura's fourth trip around the sun with her family and some funfetti cupcakes. We knew by this time in the school year that she would receive gifts of a stone, a button, a shell, and a feather to commemorate her four years.

On Friday, we walked along the new art ribbon trail to see art by our students and students at three art studios displayed throughout the pine forest. We climbed on top of the newly painted (well, it was fully dry) storm drain. If you have never seen a raccoon ride a bicycle, walk down the steep hill behind the retention pond to see this one! We ate our lunch at the picnic tables in the sunshine.

Kindergarten April 9 - 14

The kindergarten students participated in an archaeology dig in the sandbox and sandboat. They discovered and uncovered bones, shells, crystals, fossils, antlers, Native American artifacts, and more.

In storytime this week, we learned how the honey bee got its stinger.

Students' wildlife art posters were displayed in the Nature at Night art exhibit on the basketball court.

Kindergarten March 26 - 30

This week we celebrated the 5th birthday of our twins, Ezra and Lounes, with their extended family. Their Mom, Christine, made delicious coconut cupcakes for everyone.

We learned more about night animals and practiced drawing them. Finally we drew our chosen nocturnal animals onto the beautiful watercolor backgrounds we had created a week before. These will be submitted to the Nature at Night wildlife poster contest.

We visited the fairy hostel each day to see the changes that fairies had made to it and the new items they had added. We created our own fairy houses out in the forest.

We finished making and decorating the big folders that will hold all of our artwork.

Ki Sonya shared with us the story of How Coyote Helped to Create the Stars.

Kindergarten March 19 - 23

We celebrated two spring birthdays this week: Gabriela turned five and Lochlan turned four. In storytime, Ki Warren told us a Native American story about how the people came to have fire.

Ki Lindsey helped us create wet on wet watercolors in combinations of red and blue. We will be using these as backgrounds for our nocturnal animal drawings. Ki Sonya will be helping us next week with drawings of night animals to enter in the state wildlife poster contest.

For Creature Feature, we met a beautiful and very soft rabbit.

Kindergarten March 12 - 16

We started off the week by celebrating Oliver's 6th birthday. During Creature Feature, we met Ki Sonya's two snow dogs: a Samoyed named Story and a Great Pyrenees named Prancer. In the Nature Moment, we looked at different kinds of sea sponges. 

A trailer-load of logs was delivered and they made the perfect place to crawl about and look for hidden popsicle sticks. We also balanced books on our heads, discovered a new pine tree that had fallen to the ground, and sat on the wall in the sunshine. We are looking forward to warmer weather!

Kindergarten March 5 - 9

This week in kindergarten, Ki Warren told us a Seneca Indian story about Old Man Winter, the North Wind, and Young Man Spring.

We fed the miniature donkey and goats, made sourdough bread, and played in deep mud puddles.

In our Nature Moment, we learned how to line up objects in order of their size. Then we practiced by lining up pine cones, seashells, wooden frogs, and even ourselves!

We sat down by the pond with Ki Sonya and created a frog pond chorus using the wooden chorus frogs. 

Ki Tess from The Amphibian Foundation shared many special amphibians and reptiles with us during Creature Feature. These included a tree frog, a toad, geckos, a snake, and a bearded dragon. 

Kindergarten February 26 - March 2

This week the kindergarten students played in and on and around a tire, floated sticks and logs on the creek, slid down the banana slide, and picked up trash from the woods. 

We searched for hidden birds in the pine forest. We learned about birds with a visit from Perdido, the Great Blue Heron puppet. For our weekly Creature Feature, Ki Eve from the Chattahoochee Nature Center shared two beautiful birds of prey with us: a red-shouldered hawk and a barred owl. Students got to hold hawk and owl feathers during the presentation.

Kindergarten February 5 - 9

The first full week of February brought us some pretty sunshine and so much rain! We celebrated Violet's 4th trip around the sun with a birthday circle. We painted rocks that we will use to line the garden path. We played in deep puddles and mud holes. We felt different animal coats and learned about how animals with fur stay warm in the winter. In our Creature Feature program, we had a visit from Ki Kim and Ki Tim. They brought their two rescue greyhounds, Riley and Max, who received lots of pats and hugs.

Kindergarten January 29 - Feb 2

This week we celebrated 4-year-old Valkyra with a birthday gathering. In the Nature Moment we looked for Hidden Birds and then hid them in the forest for our friends to find. During Creature Feature Ki Mike brought a corn snake named Kernal, as well as a snake skin and snake skeleton, for us to see. We made bread dough, played in the cold mud, and raced our shadows. Ki Sonya helped us create a story about two children who go on a journey with lots of crazy animals!

Kindergarten January 22-26

Our first full week of spring semester was packed full of adventures! We celebrated Lucan's 6th birthday with chocolate chip banana muffins and a laurel made of pinecones and pine needles. 

We visited with Ki Vicky from A-Z Animals who had us try on bat masks, told us how bats come in all sizes, and showed us a live Egyptian fruit bat.

Ki Warren told us a Seneca Indian story about how the very first story came to be. We chopped veggies for soup, baked bread, and made wooden toys.

We created pinecone bird feeders and hung them from trees for the winter birds. We played in the puddles. We explored the creek where the highlights were the river cane and a dead frog. In our Nature Moment, we learned about seashells and held them to our ears to hear the call of the ocean.

Kindergarten Dec 11 - 15

Monday was a SNOW day so we started back to school Tuesday. We began the week by celebrating Abby's 6th birthday with her Mom, grandmother, and brothers. They brought us popcorn, hot chocolate, and hot apple cider! We finished sewing a few more water bottle holders. We enjoyed our Spanish class. We created some crayon drawings. Miss Sonya told us a story about an old man who punched holes in the night sky to create the stars and the moon. Mr. Warren read us a lovely story about four princes. 

The snowstorm brought down a lot of pine boughs so we used them to build a fort. We were thrilled with the new fairy garden created by Miss Tammy's daughter, Grace. We shared a milestone when one of our students lost her very first tooth while in class! 

We practiced lighting a candle and walking with it carefully and respectfully to help us prepare for the Advent Spiral. We practiced our songs that we sang for Advent. Finally, the BIG event arrived and we participated in the beautiful Advent Spiral and performed our Advent songs.

Kindergarten Dec 4 - Dec 8

There was lots of activity in kindergarten this week. We celebrated 4 trips around the sun with Mason and his parents. They brought us banana bread as a birthday snack. 

We took a sunny walk in the creek looking for clams and quartz and raccoon tracks. We created stained glass from sycamore leaves on the playground fence. Miss Sonya told us a story about the monkeys that live along Silver River in central Florida. We helped Mr. Lee empty the compost bin and add all that good stuff to the soil in the garden. 

Alice brought her tiny turtles Holly and Tinsel to the kindergarten and taught us all about them. Roman and Andi did crayon drawings to enter in a poster contest. 

We sang a fun song about Jack Frost and one about the leaves and the wind. We also practiced the songs we'll be performing at the Advent Spiral. 

We completed our snow globes and packaged them to take home to our parents. On Friday we got the real thing as we played and built snow families in several inches of fluffy snow.

Kindergarten Nov 27 - Dec 1

We had nice warm weather for the last week of November, although Sister Rain visited us on Thursday and Sister Fog started the day with us on Friday. This week we celebrated Anya's 6th birthday with a visit with her parents, songs, poems, and fresh strawberries. Mason broke his leg on a trampoline (Ouch!) but he is back at school with us and healing well. 

Kindergarten students went on a creek walk to look for animal tracks. We buried acorns for the squirrels. We worked on our crayon drawings and water bottle holders. We found some mud puddles! 

We practiced the songs we will be singing at the Advent Spiral. Miss Kathee helped us write new words to the 17th century English Christmas carol, I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In. We continued to talk about class expectations for our kindergarten, with an emphasis on being kind and respectful to each other, to our teachers, to our toys and tools, and to all life.

Kindergarten Nov 13 - 17

In the week before the Thanksgiving holiday, the kindergarten students enjoyed playing in the leaves, climbing hills and trees, and building forts. We spent hours digging for jewels and sailing a pirate ship. For our tiny morning snack, we tried pears, pomegranates, and even sugar cane (always a favorite in the late fall). 

Mr. Warren read to us from Grimm's fairy tales. He twisted vines and ferns into wreathes, the students created candles and felted pumpkins, and Miss Sonya added hickory nuts and sweetgum balls to make centerpieces for our Thanksgiving dinner. Miss Sonya brought earthworms for us to visit with. Miss Lindsey continues to help each student sew their own water bottle holder out of felt. We sang a song about wild horses and one called "I Like Dirt"!

Kindergarten Nov 6 - Nov 10

Last week the Kindergartners enjoyed a visit with Mr. Rodney from our schools Garbage Disposal company. The highlight was getting to press that truck horn!. For story time, Ms. Kathee visited the Kindergarten class to share the Stone Soup story. For Practical work the children baked their own Sourdough bread, and tasted it for bread and butter snack on Thursday. Lastly, we completed our watercolor and cutwork Lanterns which we enjoyed sharing with our families and school community on Nov 9th. 

Kindergarten Oct 30 - Nov 3

What a fun week at The Garden School! We wore our Halloween costumes to school on Tuesday. We made leaf and flower presses so we can preserve some of the colorful leaves and pretty fall flowers we are finding. We took home bumpy gourds in our backpacks to show to our families. 

Miss Sonya told us a story about The Fox and the Falling Leaves. Miss Lindsey taught us how to sew shoulder holders for our water bottles. Mr. Warren helped us swing very high on a new swing. Mr. Lee let us smash pumpkins for the goats and miniature donkey to eat. We grated lemons to make lemon zest. We stood around the fire pit in the mornings but then took our jackets and gloves off for the warm sunny afternoons. We are learning two special lantern songs that we will be singing on the Lantern Walk this Thursday.

Kindergarten Oct 23 - 27

Fall is definitely here at The Garden School! The kindergarten students finished creating leaf rubbings using many different kinds of leaves from the forest floor. Miss Sonya told a story about pumpkins and gourds that were lumpy and bumpy and then we got to play with some very lumpy, bumpy pumpkins and gourds. Miss Jasmine taught us a lantern song that we will be singing on the Veterans Day Lantern Walk.

We worked to grind more cinnamon and nutmeg, and crushed garbanzo beans to make hummus for our snack. We played on the rocks in the creek. We visited the miniature donkey and the goats, Snow White and Prince Kudzu. Each day brought an opportunity for imaginative play as we rode on a stagecoach pulled by a powerful horse, cared for a snail that left a trail made of real silver, and dug in the sandbox for jewels buried by pirates. As they like to say in the Deep South, a good time was had by all!

Kindergarten Oct 16 - 20

The kindergarten enjoyed some gorgeous fall weather and a fun 5th birthday celebration for Eric and his Mom Anita. We worked to chop celery and zucchini for our soup and grind grain for our bread. We worked together to dig up a huge "golden stone" from the ground which we placed in the kindergarten classroom. We sewed our watercolor artwork into binders for new nature books that we will fill with drawings and bark rubbings. 

Miss Lindsey told a beautiful story about a mother spider and her babies. Miss Sonya taught us a fun song called "Froggy". We played with the colorful parachute. We walked over rocks through the creek. We walked to the garden to feed the miniature donkey and goats. And we had an archaeology dig in the sandbox where we discovered all kinds of bones, antlers, shells, and fossils.