Joyful Beginnings: September 30 - October 4

We were happy to see our students coming back after their week-long vacation. It’s so nice to see the classroom bustling full with kids. Everyone was so excited to see their friends at school again. 

The theme of the week was apples. We recited a poem about apples, sang a song about apples, drew pictures with apples and listened to a fairy tale about apples. We even had apples as our snacks. :)

We went to the garden patch. Some students watered plants and vegetables. We were also lucky to find one freshly hatched egg to take back to the school!

Friday we had storytime combined with snack. The story was about the little boy looking for a red house without doors and windows that has the star inside. As we told the story we cut open the red apples to reveal the star in the middle holding little seeds. It was lots of fun and we ate a lot of apples!

Specialty Class: MUSIC

The Grades students are enjoying the opportunity to sing, move, and play instruments in music class.

In the lower grades, they are learning solfeggiotto (think doe a deer from The Sound of Music).

In grades 3-7, we are adding the reading of staff notation. We utilize primary sources, such as folk songs from around the world for the literature they are learning.

First and second grade students are both learning to play pitched and unpitched percussion instruments with others, as well as individually.

Students in grades 3-7 are learning the basic techniques as well as playing ensemble music for violin, recorder, pitched and unpitched percussion, autoharp, dulcimer, and ukulele.

We are having fun and learning at the same time!

Upper Grades: September 16 - 20

Time sensitive: The Garden School has been invited to lead the worship service at Emerson next Sunday, 9/29. Sara Walsh will be presenting the sermon and Ki Kathee will be leading the music programming. Kathee has requested that any of our students that are available attend and play ukelele during the offering. Please let Kathee know if your student can attend: kathee@thegardenmarietta.org


Last week in the Upper Grades class, we had a quick math block where we spent the first part of the week reviewing fractions. We then moved into new concepts in statistics and probability that were a progression from analyzing data collected in our Physics block. We closed out our Physics block with a graded unit test which is a new experience for many of the students. We practiced taking written notes and outlining throughout the Physics block, and their test results showed good comprehension of the concepts we covered throughout the block. I will continue to guide them in note taking and give tests on block material throughout the year as we work to continually hone skills they will need in high school.


The students finished reading Stella by Starlight, a story of racial strife in depression era rural North Carolina. We wrapped up our book discussion of The Lions of Little Rock. The students created an alpana last week after learning about the Bangladeshi style of painting in their reading of Rickshaw Girl. I assigned The Breadwinner for the students to read over the break. It's a short book about life under Taliban rule in Afghanistan. We are reading books quickly and covering a wide range of topics through the novels I've selected. I'm not assigning written book reports for every book we read, so we are exploring themes through discussion and other activities as well.


Last week in class, we read In Search of a Homeland, a retelling of "The Aeneid" which will set us up for another writing assignment and serve to transition from our studies of Ancient Greece at the end of last year and into the founding of Rome which will begin when we return from fall break. The students began memorizing the opening passage from "The Aeneid" in Latin. They will be performing the first 11 lines in both Latin and English at our first Friday event on October 4. Please remind them to practice over the break. This link has the pronunciation of the Latin to help them accomplish the memory work. The section they will need to listen to starts at 1:15 and ends at 2:35: https://youtu.be/orzrnEzKbaE .


I hope you enjoy fall break and let me know if you have any questions!

Middle Grades: September 16 - 20

I know you are having a good week of rest before the students go off on their field trip. I’m getting very excited!! Don’t forget to work on the Famous Georgians reports that are due Friday, October 5.

If you have any questions about the trip, feel free to call or text - 770-654-7878.

Second Grade: September 16 - 20

The second grade class worked had to learn the Saint George and the Dragon poem for our Day of Courage celebration. The worked with their partners at impromptu moments during the school day without being asked as they were so excited about the task ahead. It was really wonderful to see their desire to do well blossoming as a class. Thank you all so very much for jumping in to help make our festival special for the school and our class! They did a fantastic job!

During our Saint George block, we heard several versions of the story of Saint George and the Dragon, as well as various poems. The students copied and illustrated a poem and some children even created poems of their own. We will continue to work on language skills (and some poetry) after fall break as we learn about Saint Francis. We also learned about "r-controlled" vowels such a "er", also known as "bossy-r" as we worked on our poem. Many phonics lessons are brought in through copy work, as well as learning sentence structure. Overall, the students are really showing wonderful penmanship skills too!

In math, we have been reviewing fact families and numeral formation as well as counting by threes and memorizing our fives times table. As your child writes letters or numbers at home, please remind them they all go top to bottom (or heaven to earth, sky to ground, or any such pictorial phrasing as you can think of). Formation in this manner makes writing less laborious and also helps immensely as we move into beginning cursive next semester. Our weekly form drawing lessons on Fridays also are directly tied to proper letter formation and to beginning cursive instruction.

Please enjoy your Fall Break! When we return, we will start with our class curriculum night Monday, September 30th from 6:30-7:30. This is an adult-only time where we will look more deeply into our year ahead, and to answer any questions you may have about what is happening in second grade. See you there!

With gratitude,

Melissa

First Grade: September 16 - 20

Hello First Grade Families! 

I lift my arms to the clear blue sky,

I stretch them wide and I stretch them high.

Firmly on the earth I stand,

To my neighbor I give my hand.

We are still on our second block of language arts which will end next week (the beginning of October). Last week, we went over the letters s, t and m. The children did a beautiful job with making their sounds, and forming them into the words I put on the board. They heard stories such as Strong Hans and a Tale of the City Mouse and Country Mouse.

We continue to do math games where we are adding and subtracting using gems, cards and dominoes.

The children now have different seating arrangements and are getting used to their new friends next to them.

Reminders:

October 3rd is parent night at 6:30. We will meet outside at the picnic tables.

Please continue to bring change of clothes as we will be continuing to go to the creek until it gets cooler outside.

Thank you,

Ki Aja

Kindergarten: September 16 - 20

Greetings Forestgarten Families,

Our kindergarten class enjoyed some cooler temperatures this past week. We had plenty of fun in the forest, and trips to the garden to play, explore, and feed fruit and veggie scraps to the goats and donkeys! We also enjoyed having Ki Emily in our class for a few days.

On Monday and Tuesday the students were able to continue their practice with finger knitting. Some of them were even ready to move to knitting on three or four fingers! We are so excited by how fast the students learn and how much they already enjoy handwork. Wednesday was another botany lesson where we identified and discussed a few leaves we see often in our forest classroom: Virginia Creeper, Kudzu, Grape, and Sycamore. You can talk to your kindergartener about the plants around you when you are outside over break, you may be surprised to see how much they observe! We also learned about spiders and how they tune the strings in their webs to different frequencies. On Thursday Ki Fatima continued painting and blending colors with the students in Privet Pocket, one of our other outdoor classrooms. They love the sweet, gentle experience of color on these days.

The story this week was about Princess Elizabeth, whose castle was burned up and Prince carried away by a fierce dragon. Princess Elizabeth wears the only non-burned item she can find (a brown paper bag), and bravely heads off to find the dragon. Elizabeth finds the dragon, who says he loves to eat princesses but is very tired from destroying a castle already and asks her to come back tomorrow. She cunningly asks the dragon to demonstrate his fire breathing and quick flying skills until he is out of fire and energy, and falls fast asleep. Is Princess Elizabeth able to rescue Prince Ronald? Is he impressed by her bravery? Ask your child to finish the story; they really enjoyed the "trick" ending.

We hope you all enjoy your fall break. We look forward to seeing everyone refreshed next week, when we will have new songs and verses for our morning circle. Please also join us for our first Parent Night of the year on Wednesday, 10/2 from 6:30-7:30pm. If you did not receive an email about this even from our parent representative, Lauren Greener, please contact her at laurenmgreener@gmail.com.

Kindly,

Ki Fatima

Ki Holly

Ki Amy

Joyful Beginnings: September 16 - 20

This week's theme was hands. We told stories about builders using their hands to build various buildings. Our guest, Mrs. Marks, also shared a song about hands. We used our hands and cleaned our classroom and toys. The train table was cleaned and the trains were washed.

On Wednesday, we used crayons to draw our hands during craft time.

On Friday, we spent more time in the garden. It was finally cooler during the morning. We used the reprieve to go out and enjoy our playtime near the garden patch. 

Landon celebrated his birthday with us. His mom and dad joined us in the celebration. He shared tasty treats with the rest of the class.

Enjoy the break! We will see you in a week!

Upper Grades: September 9 - 13

We wrapped up our physics block with the study of magnetism. The students showed a great deal of enthusiasm for this entire block and particularly this week. Physics has been so much fun for students and teacher alike! We are all a little sad that the block is over. I suggest adding a strong horseshoe magnet, various metal objects, and a jar of iron filings to their gift wish lists! I'm so proud of how much growth the class made with lab reporting during these past weeks. These skills will continue to be honed throughout their school years, and they've made a nice shift into scientific observation, thinking, and writing.

This week will be a mini-math block. Our math review over the first few weeks revealed some areas in need of refresh, so we will be spending some time getting back up to speed on fractions and decimals and introduce concepts related to probability and statistics. We'll also spend more time this week on grammar concepts, and we'll have book discussions and activities for the books we've been reading outside of class. We will also be picking up our Latin studies in anticipation of starting our Ancient Rome block after Fall Break.

Middle Grades September 9 - 13

We spent a very productive week learning map skills, including the stepping off distances to create a map of our garden at the school, directions from the school to each of the students' respective houses, reading information from a map using grids, and putting together a map of Georgia.

Next week will be filled with everything Georgia - topographical zones, ancient history to more recent history, and Georgian folklore. As part of this block, I would like for each student to choose one of the following famous persons from Georgia and prepare a report about that person. These reports will be due on Friday, October 4.

Famous Georgians in History:  Jimmy Carter, Martin Luther King, Jr., Juliette Gordon Low, Sequoia, John Lewis, Billy Joel Royal, Otis Redding, Jessye Norman, Brenda Lee, the Everly Brothers, Amy Grant, Ray Charles, Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker, Joanne Woodward, Burt Reynolds, Ty Cobb, Andrew Young

Please let your child do as much of the research as possible on their own. I prefer that they consult the local library for written materials; however, I am aware of the increasing dependency on the web for information. If you use web resources, please have them list the website they used and the date it was accessed. They will need to create a poster about the person, which should include at least one picture (preferably drawn by the child), the most important contribution they made to Georgia, when they lived, where they were born, and some interesting facts about their lives. They will also need to submit an index card including the sources they used for their information, and notes they took for the oral report they will give on the 4th.

A reminder that the second book report is due next Friday, Sept 20. The same list of possible presentations will be available for each report; however, they must choose a different type than they chose in previous book reports. The first round of reports were fabulous!!!! I can't wait to see the next set.

I am really looking forward to seeing you next Thursday evening. I really wanted to have us go out onto the new floating classroom, which we use when we have class outside; however, I'm worried about the fact that if we're all at the meeting we might sink it....... so we'll opt to have out social time at the picnic table and our meeting on the near side of the pond. You might want to use some bug spray - but please remember that I am allergic to DEET.

See you Thursday at 6:30!!!

Blessings,

Kathee

Second Grade: September 9 - 13

The second grade class enjoyed the first week of our Saint George (and Saint Francis) block. We heard one version of the story of Saint George and the Dragon as well as two other verses focusing on courage. In the story we will share at the Day of Courage festival, Saint George subdues the dragon, and while not all our stories share that theme (the dragon does not always give up so willingly), the underlying message for our students is overcoming their own dragons. We shared about our dragons, such as becoming angry at our siblings or being scared of certain things both real and imagined. It's made for some very interesting and insightful conversations. We spent time painting and drawing dragons, copying verses and practicing our long, shared verse. Each child took home a copy of the verse they will be speaking at the festival. Please help them memorize their verse by saying it for and with them. If your child can read it, please remind them to still memorize it. I will be there to prompt them when needed. We will practice at school this week together as well, in preparation for Friday's festival.

Fridays we focus on form drawing through fables. We have been reading Anansi the Spider stories and also learning more about spiders as animals. The students love the stories of mischievous, but caring, Anansi, a little reflection of all of us. Following the stories, we work on drawing forms. Form drawing helps us develop our will as we must slow down and draw with thought and care. This school year our form drawing focuses on mirrored forms. We are taking this step by step as we first draw one side of the form and then reflect the opposite form the next class period. These forms also directly link to handwriting (letter-formation) and will help the students as they move into cursive letter formation this school year.

With gratitude,

Ki Melissa

First Grade: September 9 - 13

Hello first grade families!

Last week we explored our letters a, w and d. The children enjoyed listening to stories about a brother rescuing his sister and a young man trying to escape a wizard. These stories come from Celic and Turkish backgrounds. We did activities in the sand and played games to help with sounding out the letters. The children's ability to draw pictures of the stories being told is growing.

The children are counting by 2's and 5's. We will be incorporating a jump rope soon into our morning activities and will start to also count by 10's. In the beginning only a couple of students were joining in with our counting, and now most of the class is jumping right in and they are able to go up to 100!

Reminders:

Day of courage is September 20, which is also a half day.

Parent Night is October 3 from 6:30-7:30.

Thank you,

Ki Aja

Kindergarten: September 9 - 13

Greetings Forestgarten Families!

This past week was full of fun in the sun for our kindergarteners! We stayed cool in the shade of the forest where students were busy building, climbing, swinging, running, jumping and baking muddy treats.  

On Monday, Ki Amy introduced finger knitting to the students.  Some students were able to come home with beautiful bracelets and necklaces.  We will keep working on this skill over the next few weeks.  On Tuesday, we had fun with hammers and nails.  Students practiced hammering nails into tree stumps.  They were so proud when they were able to hammer the nail all the way in.  Ki Holly offered another botany lesson on Wednesday where students learned to identify parts of a plant. They are learning important information in these lessons. We heard many students singing “Leaves of three let it be, hairy rope touch it nope!” as they skipped through the forest.  On Thursday, Ki Fatima introduced the blending of two colors with watercolors. They mixed red and blue to make beautiful purple paintings! 

Our story this week was about kindness. Jono is a child who likes to play with the other children but he often hurts his friends when he plays and they become upset. One day, a child named Sarah finds a tunnel and she explores it, finding a family of rabbits.  These are special rabbits who talk and wear fancy clothes and drink tea.  They tell Sarah to bring her friends but there is one condition – only the kind can see. Sarah goes to gather her friends and Jono wants to join them.  She tells him what the rabbits said and they leave Jono behind.  He feels sad and begins to think about some of the things he has done.  Ask your child to finish the rest, as there is a very happy ending to Jono’s tale! 

We cannot believe that this week is our last week before fall break.  Time sure does fly when you are having fun! 

Kindly,

Ki Fatima

Ki Holly

Ki Amy 

Joyful Beginnings: September 9 - 13

The whole week was hot and humid. We joined Kindergarten in their play area in the forest. The forest play area gave us shade to find relief.

We again were visited by Mrs. Marks. The children are enjoying the hour she spends in our classroom, especially when she showed us finger songs.

Our theme this week was bees. We sang songs and listened to the stories about bees. 

In our painting class, we used crayons to draw the outlines and then covered with watercolors to finish the work. Students really enjoyed this technique.

On Wednesday, Landon’s mom was helping throughout the day and we all loved having her here. We all really appreciate her assistance.

We baked gluten-free vegan oatmeal cookies. All students got to work with the cookie dough and shaping them before baking. Everyone was able to try them and some even liked the cookies:) We took cookies to our Kindergarten friends who were sharing their play area with us.

This week, we found a new storytime place. Previously we had a storytime near the garden, but now we are doing it in the Upper grades area in the forest. This will be our special place for story time as we want it to feel special and help the children them focus on the story.

Upper Grades: September 3 - 6

Last week was the third week of our Physics block. We continued using our main lesson time for immersion in hands-on experiments and demonstrations for our study of thermodynamics. The students were able to experience warmth and cold through a variety of media and conditions. We gained an understanding of how heat travels and experimented with various mechanisms for generating heat. Molten metal was a favorite demonstration this week. In the upcoming week, we will begin our exploration of magnetism and electricity. The students will continue to refine their lab reporting skills with write-ups of our class activities.

The class did a great job with their hosting and performance at the first First Friday Assembly. We will continue to work on ukulele and poetry.


We will be starting a new novel this week. While the books we are reading for our social justice studies are targeted to middle school students, they are also interesting to adult readers if any parents would like to read along with us. I am working to line up speakers to visit our class that have lived the experiences of our book topics. I'm trying to finalize a visit from one of the "lost boys" of Sudan. If you have contacts that would be willing to visit our class to discuss social justice issues, please contact me.

Middle Grades: September 3 - 6

Hello Middle Grade Families,

I have sent you all several emails in the past few days, so please refer to those for the important news for our class!

Best,

Ki Kathee

Second Grade: September 3 - 6

This week the second grade enjoyed class each morning in our forest classroom. We bring our crayons, coloring pencils, and paper and have our main lessons in the (much cooler) woodlands. It is wonderful how the children sit surrounded by trees and the sounds of nature and yet still maintain their focus during their work time. They work both silently and steadily at their desk-benches. The new weatherproof chalkboard is really wonderful (thank you Ki Derek)! With just a few extra supplies and our snacks, we are set for the first half our our day.

This past week we finished up a period focusing on nouns and verbs through Aesop's fables. We defined both terms and created short sentences using them. We also began writing in journals. Journaling is a free writing and drawing time. We will sometimes have topics and other times chose our own. The children are encouraged to both draw and write. Writing is inventive, no spelling "like in books" is required. This allows the children to focus on the sounds they hear in words and to just get their thoughts on paper without concerning themselves if their spelling is accurate. It frees them up to enjoy the process and is a special experience.

Math journals were also begun. In these journals (a.k.a. composition notebooks), the students will work on both numeral formation and math equations. All-in-all a productive week in the woodlands as we close our first block of Fables.

Our new block will focus on Saint George and Saint Francis as we get ready to lead our school celebration for The Day of Courage. We are looking at reworking the usual event and will let you all know the details in the near future and how you can help. Stories of saints and other heroic persons help the children see a higher ideal of humanity. During this block we will continue to focus on sentence structure and grammar as well as basic math equations.

Our class meeting night will be Tuesday, October 1 at 6:30. During this time, we will all visit a little, talk about our class structure and blocks for the coming school year, and hopefully answer any pressing questions you may have. I'm looking forward to seeing you all there!

With gratitude,

Ki Melissa

First Grade: September 3 - 6

Hello first grade families!

Last week we started our language arts block. We have gone over our sounds for the letters C and O. The children were able to listen to fairy tales from Norse mythology and a pesky little cat.

We have started our stations where groups of two are able to work at a station for 5-10 minutes on the letter of the day. These stations include making the letter on chalkboard, walking the letter, molding the letter in clay, and playing a game where they have to say words that start with the sound the letter makes. They quite enjoyed this.

We have started ASL, which everyone really enjoyed! They continue to really dive into languages and even have started characters in Mandarin. In handwork with Ki Gaby, our class created necklaces and bracelets which they were so proud to show off. They have also really been enjoying their clay lessons and water color painting. Soon, the children will be able to help with brushing the animals, as many of them often ask when they can start helping with the goats and donkeys!

The first Friday assembly went very well. Each student did a great job. As the months go on our performances will become more complex and you will be able to see the math activities that are done in our circle as well.

Our First Grade Class Parent Night will be at 6:30pm on October 3rd. Please note that this is a parent only evening. We will first gather at the picnic tables before heading into our first grade classroom to discuss our upcoming year. I look forward to seeing everyone there!

Thank you,

Ki Aja

Kindergarten: September 3 - 6

Greetings Forestgarten Families!

We started off this past week by celebrating sweet Hadleigh’s fifth birthday.  Her mom and dad shared memories from when Hadleigh was a baby and friends shared wishes for Hadleigh’s fifth year.  We then enjoyed a sweet treat of fruit and yogurt.  Happy Birthday, Hadleigh!

The children sanded wood pieces, learned about poison choke berries, and painted beautiful watercolor paintings, combining two colors this week to create exquisite works of art!

All of the children are progressing well in foreign language.  It is exciting to see how amazing their memories are in both Spanish and Mandarin.  In Spanish, the children are singing a fun song about a rooster and in Mandarin they are playing a color game where they walk in a circle and someone gets captured under the bridge. 

The story this week was called The Little Red House. A boy, bored with his toys, is sent by his mother to go find a little red house with no windows and no doors and a star inside.  He goes outside and meets a little girl, a farmer, and a grandmother who ultimately points him in the direction of Brother Wind.  Does Brother Wind help him find this mysterious little house?  Ask your Forestgartner and you will see! 

We were so impressed with the children’s performance of Peace is Flowing like a River at our first First Friday Assembly of the year.  They all did a wonderful job and they were very excited to perform for their grown-ups!

Kindly,

Ki Fatima

Ki Holly

Ki Amy