“From Under Our Big Tree” Weekly Newsletter – Community Week #3

All Together - Community

***IN THIS NEWSLETTER***
Tending the Garden –  Attention Nature Growers, upcoming textile arts class.
Parent Teacher Tools –  Please complete your make-up PT training before you begin your classroom schedule.
TKG OfficeBuy your tickets to the Fall Fundraiser, Oct 29
In Education NewsPrioritize connection time, it keeps you healthy!


Thank you for an inspiring, Parent Teacher retreat!

Starting with Dr. Joseph Lee,  we got to thinking about how children learn and the process of adolescent development. We heard from each teacher, they shared their specialties and some of their passions. Hopefully you have learned more about who they are and how they relate to you and your children. Monica helped us zoom out to think about how Parent Teachers fit into our mission with a lens on accessibility and sustainability. The thousands of hours you have agreed to work directly affect our big projects and learning environment…and lower your tuition.

Why do we believe in Parent Teachers? Because we believe in community. With that in mind, we see every parent meeting as an opportunity to strengthen our commitment to Whole Child + Family Education. This extension of our educational program holds true to our value of emergent curriculum: it has expanded to meet our families where they are, it has been more clearly defined to support the school, teachers and community; and it encompasses multi-generational learning. Thank you to the grandparents who joined us on Saturday!

Please be sure the monthly parent meetings are on your calendar (click here to see our official calendar):

Thursday Oct 6
Thursday Jan 19
Saturday March 4
Saturday May 20

Book your sitters now or maybe coordinate care share with other families in order to facilitate attendance for both parents. Prioritize for this time, your family educational experience and connected-ness will be deepened. Can you believe this is a school?! As always, we’d love to know your feedback.

Another TKG family resource kicks off this week. Renee Dokmanovich  will be facilitating a 6-week ECHO parenting course at TKG. Contact Trish if you are interested in joining and if you can’t make this one, there will be others. Renee will also host a monthly support group beginning this month. Be sure to review our official calendar for the dates.

One of our goals for this year is to deepen our academic programming which, at TKG, includes learning outdoors. We are thrilled to confirm that for the month of October, Field Day will be a partnership with the Palos Verdes Land Conservancy at George F. Canyon in Palos Verdes. Please be advised that this nature center is approximately 15 minutes from TKG. Some of you will find the faster route via the 110 FWY. We will be here for the entire month so get your carpools organized! We can’t tell you how excited we are to expand our Field day program in this way. For those of you who have friends who want to join us (homeschool/unschool/day off from school), we should be ready to open registration in November.

Thanks for joining us on our first Field Day with Joel! Here are some things to spark more learning at home: House finch*Brazilian pepper tree*
Bee (bee puke= honey)*Wild cucumber-natural soap*Raven- round tail*Crow- cut and smaller*Sandstone*Snails*Abalone shells*Shale- dark layers in cliff*Prickly pear cactus  remove (glockids)*Buckwheat*Lizard (cherucko)*Japanese beetle*Holly*Sage brush

…and as the great Vin Scully says, “As long as you live keep smiling because it brightens everybody’s day.”

With Gratitude,
Team TKG

COMMUNICATION STREAMS
Lena Garcia, Head of Education, Acorns Lead Teacher
Trish Valdez, School Business Manager
Monica Evangelist, Board President
Facebook (private group), Community Forum
Shutterfly Info Site: photos, contact information, announcements
OFFICIAL CALENDAR: subscribe and never miss an event
Follow us on Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Pintrest/Youtube
TKG Info

Tending the Garden

  • FACE Time begins this Friday: Nature Growers, please bring 2 large, old t-shirts (they will be converted in to something else) for our Textile Arts class.
  • Teacher Office Hours – Thurs 3-4pm: This time is open and informal and there is childcare (thanks to an awesome PT!)
  • Tuition & School Fundraiser – Thrs 4-7pm: Join us at Yogurtland (on Hawthorne) to earn toward your tuition and raise money for TKG. Earnings will be split between families and TKG so be sure to return your receipt on the green monster.
TKG believes in…
  • CONSTRUCTIVISM: teachers and parents support relevant learning & creativity
  • WHOLE CHILD + FAMILY: cognitive, physical and social/emotional health is valued – families & caregivers are our partners
  • BRAIN SCIENCE: we are sensory learners with existing neural pathways and we can help develop and practice positive learning experiences
  • CAPACITY BUILDING: nurturing creative thinkers who are encouraged to solve problems that serve our community
  • COOPERATIVE LEARNING: small groups, low ratios, mixed ages
Parent Teacher Info

Parent Teacher Tools

  • PTs This Week
    • TUE: Assadi, Kang, Lee
    • THR: Ceci, Rossfeld
    • FRI: Williams, Watanabe, Minor
  • ECHO Parenting Series – Wed 7pm @ TKG: Please confirm your attendance, space is limited.
  • PT Training Make up: Thur 9-10am or 3-4pm, Contact Lena.
PT RESOURCE: Trouble Sleeping? Try Meditation
A new study suggests that if you’re having trouble sleeping, meditation may be the way to go. UCLA researchers, working with colleagues from USC, recruited 49 adults aged 55 and older who had moderate sleep problems. Half of them enrolled in a six-week sleep education course that included lessons on sleep habits, relaxation methods and establishing bedtime routines. The other half enrolled in a mindful meditation course. Read more @KPCC
Admin Announcements

From the TKG Office

Fall Fundraiser – Sat 29 October 6-8pm @Barsha: The tradition continues with “A Toast to Learning” Masquerade Celebration. Please buy your tickets soon. You’ll be hearing from Lacey regarding raffle donations and sponsorships – so start thinking about how to get involved with attending, cash donations or selling raffle tickets! Share our FB event with friends.

Support TKG- Ink Recycling: Please donate your used ink cartridges to us and help us earn $ toward teacher supplies. Ellen Cater, a member of our PT Fundraising Team, collects and organizes all the details. She can also answer your questions about this initiative. Click here to email her directly.

Open Enrollment TKG is still enrolling for this year and we won’t stop ’til we’re full! Encourage your friends to check us out – our website, Facebook, Insta or just call! Our office line is 310 728 9337, our email is Learning@KnowingGarden.org, our website is KnowingGarden.org

Click to see our the Official Calendar.

The Four Agreements
1. Be Impeccable with your Word
2. Don’t Take Anything Personally
3. Don’t Make Assumptions
4. Always Do Your Best

Resource Of The Week – Cultivation of Connection

Relationships: How-To, Empathy, Communication & Connection

Empathy, communication, and connection…throughout your parent experience at TKG (and beyond!), you are an important part of the safety net that embraces us, our families and our children. Our village is love:
*   *   *
by Joseph Lee, M.D.

It’s part of our human nature to look for meaning in life. So it’s no surprise that Positive Psychology research has shown that of all the ways that we can experience positive emotions, meaningful experiences have the most long lasting effects on life satisfaction. Meaningful experiences are described as ones where we take our highest strengths, attributes and internal resources, and we use them in the service of something larger than ourselves. The most common, everyday opportunity for us to have these types of experiences is through our relationships.

Barbara Fredrickson’s book LOVE 2.0 summarizes her research on the ways in which experiencing the emotion of love, both as a giver and receiver, changes our mind, our body, and ultimately our life course through an upward spiral of what she calls “positivity resonance” – an ever expanding experience of authentic positive emotion, openness, and connection. In his amazing study of the complete lives of 268 healthy Harvard graduates from the late 1940’s until the present day, Harvard Psychiatrist George Vaillant summarizes the enormous amounts of data from his decades of research in one simple line – “Happiness is love. Full stop.” READ MORE @MentalHealthiness

Empathy, Connection & Communication

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