"Monday, Monday Oh What a Day"

Monday, Monday, Monday.

Yes you see that right. It does say Monday. Whenever we have a three day weekend, it feels like Monday is on its correct day as well as Tuesday feeling like a Monday (teacher's workday--so I had to go to work). Now this week, I can put in the third Monday as tomorrow will be the first day the students and assistants will be back at school. So everything we do will be laced with the "What is today?" question to be sure we do the right stuff on the right days! It will also feel like so much longer of a day with us only having 3 days of school with students this week.

Don't get me wrong--I was grateful the students weren't there today. I had too many other things that I had to get done today. And I still didn't get them all done. But I did get the important things done!

I was excited to find out that the article I wrote up for our Johnny Appleseed Birthday Celebration was published in the local paper on Sunday. I don't get a paper, so I didn't see it. But someone brought it to me this morning. I don't really care that they published what I wrote--they have full editorial rights to whatever I submit. I WAS excited that one of the pictures I took to accompany the article was there.

OK, I promised to give information on the Pony Patch to a classmate. So here it is. The Pony Patch is a family operated business that originally was just in the "game" to go entertain children at birthday parties. They have horses that they used to bring to people so the children could ride them. The owner, Karen then met and married a man with a beautiful son with Down's Syndrome. She saw how he went from being very frightened of the horses to having a very special relationship with them. As they added animals to their farm, she saw how the animals were able to help bring him out of his shell. Since then, they have hosted parties for special needs children and especially school groups. She invites them--well technicallythe teacher arranges a field trip--to her home. they then are allowed to ride the horses, pet the goats, chickens, rabbits, pig, and whatever other animal happens to be around that day. Karen and her staff have grown to love our special needs children and love to work with them with the animals. The reactions to the animals vary from child to child, animal to animal. But no matter what, you can see an acceptance in the faces of both the animals and children that each of them is special.

You can contact Karen and her menagerie at:

"The Pony Patch"
Karen Davidson-Travis
16037 Grafe Homestead Road
228-623-2888 / 228-239-0560 / 228-588-0709
www.theponypatch.net (Site is Under Construction)
Email: theponypatch@bellsouth.net