What percentage of the school day at Merritt is spent on learning?

Imagine you visit Merritt in the middle of a typical school day.  The two years olds are out on the playground and you watch children playing in the sand filling up and dumping out buckets of sand over and over and over.  You see K4 students walking in a line behind their teacher as they head from the gym back to their classroom.  In the infant room you see a teacher holding a baby and feeding her a bottle.  You head into the school building and see a small group of children reading aloud with their teacher at the table in the lobby. You peak into the 7th grade classroom and see the students sitting at their desks typing on their chromebooks. Further down the hall you see the 5th graders organizing small toys and trinkets. The door to the 3rd grade is also open and you see one student talking to the teacher, two students lying on the rug writing in notebooks, another student standing up looking at a book on a tall stool, and other students sitting at their desks. Down the hall in the kindergarten class you see children tearing up pieces of colored paper and gluing them onto a large display.

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Why is there a school garden?

Have you noticed our school garden? It is in raised beds in between the school and toddler/infant building. In season it is a growing collection of flowers and vegetables that delight the senses. Even in the winter when it looks dead there are delightful things are happening underground.

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How do I have a smooth morning?

Ever have one of those days which start out rough? Maybe you stumbled bleary eyed into the kitchen only to discover you were out of coffee. Or you were planning to wear that power suit for the big presentation and realized it was still at the cleaners. Maybe you arrived at work ready to dig in to project A and finish up final details on project B but the boss meets you at the door to demand that projects C, D, and E be addressed immediately instead. Things like that can throw your whole day off and start you off in a bad mood.

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Why write a Merritt blog?

In today’s fast paced world information is constantly coming at us from all sides. Between work, home, family, and media we are all processing new data practically 24/7. How do you sort out the important from the meaningless, the wheat from the chaff?

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