Author: Tim Alderman

After a years long Covid siesta, the books I made in the early years of Cathy’s Village are finally back. She used to create them to customize the older children’s interest in reading, and with the new curriculum set to roll out next week, I have been repairing and adding new content she has discovered online.

I have also had to make adjustments and learn how to hold interest when refining my skills while also keeping to a tight schedule. This has always been a school, and the kids are adjusting to the fact the toys stay where they lay. Not that they don’t have fun, I try to make it so, but while I polish my technique they are learning every morning. And yes, get to play too..

I also have to adjust my body to keep up with them marching to music from our expanded CDs, courtesy of our supplier, ‘Just Between Friends’, before we even go outside. I can’t wait for the Kentucky Bluegrass to finish growing in the upper yard so it can be opened up as well.  The mats I placed over the slight bumps in the middle yard cushion infants as they fall on slightly uneven ground and get right back up without crying, all part of their learning.

We have a new customized set of teaching tools coming that will enhance Ms. Cathy’s teaching for this season of learning. You should notice new things they talk about at home soon. And the infants are there with them learning in a closely supervised outdoor fun environment. 

Mr. T

Well, spring has sprung, the Magnolia tree, which in front is rapidly shedding its leaves, says so. I have brought them out to the middle yard, our newest yard, giving it a kid workout. they played hard and slept longer. For those ready, I have been teaching clutching the sides of the big slide so that they learn to control how fast they will go. I watch carefully to make sure they do it safely or they don’t go.

Your children are developing social skills at their own pace, Ms. Cathy will be announcing a new program to be taught inside. I mainly work on creating fun places to visit ouside while trying to stay in the background so, as Chuck E. Cheese says, ‘A kid can be a kid’ at Cathy’s Village. Four can sit close by on the table or hob-nob in the circus tent nearby.

I have kept the upper yard, the longtime mainstay of running and trying to dig rocks under wraps for another month while seeing if Kentucky Bluegrass, supposedly stronger, takes hold, the last step in making all three yards mud free. We’ll see.

We still have oranges and lemons ready for picking, looking forward to blackberries, followed by another huge crop of apples, pears, and other fresh fruit. Sorry, the cherries didn’t make it.

Mr. T.

This letter is short and sweet. In a few short months we will be celebrating our tenth anniversary caring for children, July, to be exact. We started out taking kids to parks near and far because we had no park in our own backyard.

Last year, after a lot of fits and starts, the middle yard was finally complete. This year we
anticipate making full use of it once the tarps are removed and your child will be chasing friends with a sound of ‘whee’ in the upper yard and the shine on the new picnic table gets some real play. We also will have our web site up and running to allow more families taking notice.

I’m excited to see them having more fun in more places now that the work is complete.
Hope you will see the change too.

Mr. T