Dear Families,

Next week concludes our time together. Please make sure to double check your child's bag and belongings going home. If you can send in a paper shopping bag on Monday or Tuesday, that will help us with our packing. There will be laundry needs and ironing projects sent home for summer cleaning. Let me know if you'll take a bundle! Thanks!

A special visitor came to our room on Wednesday to observe the work we do. Pat Grosso, a certified HANDLE practitioner and occupational therapist, visited our class to reconnect with Waldorf education and our school. Her now grown children attended school at Four Winds Waldorf School. She was very pleased with her visit and reaffirmed the good work we are doing...how good it is for children's healthy development. She also reiterated the value of children spending time and growing up in the early childhood program. Like Pia Antonetti, who works with children from our school, Pat Grosso is an excellent resource for children needing extra support (especially before going into the grades) with attention, sensory processing, coordination/balance, and other work needed for children who may have neurodevelopmental differences. If you have any questions about this, feel welcomed to speak with me more.

Next week we'll have our own classroom ceremony to bid farewell to our friends "crossing the bridge" and going on to first grade next year. This journey is never to be rushed, for if one is not fully ready now, it will often show more and more with progression through the grades. Though a child is "of age," this does not always mean ready. With this I am grateful for the one family's decision, in concert with me, to keep their child in our garden for another year. This student just came to us in January, and we considered this carefully, as I will with any child. We do what we should always do ~ that which is best for the child. So our ceremony on Wednesday will be a send off to five children leaving the garden. This ceremony is for parents and grandparents of these children only, along with our children who attend class on Wednesday. In the fall, they'll be welcomed in a Rose Ceremony into the grades.

Next Week:

Kindergarten Ceremony ~ Wednesday, June 3, 11:30 a.m.

Where Do the Children Play? ~ Movie screening and panel discussion Thursday, June 4, 7:00 p.m.

Friday, June 5, School Picnic ~ Pizza and potluck, 12:30.

I'm actually enjoying working with the energy of these children during these final days of school. It is a lesson in adaptation and flexibility! We have to meet them where they are!

Warmly,
Donna Brooks

Zach Mitchell
Zach Mitchell
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