The Tuesday Notice
August 25, 2026
In a Waldorf classroom, you'll almost always find a few fresh flowers somewhere, on the nature table, at the front of the room, marking a birthday or the start of a new season. It's a small thing, but it carries a lot of meaning. Flowers help children feel connected to the natural rhythms of the year, and they turn everyday moments into something a little more special and worth pausing for. They also reflect something we care about deeply here, surrounding children with real beauty, not screens or plastic, so their days are filled with things that are alive, changing, and worth noticing.
If you have a garden with some color and green, or an impulse to bring something alive into your child's classroom, consider being a Flower Fairy and donating a garden cut or store bought bouquet to a classroom or the main hallway! Sign up with the link below.
Did you know there are many sports opportunities available to Siskiyou School students at Ashland Middle School throughout the year, including Fall sports options; Cross-country grades 6th-8th grade, Girls Volleyball for 7th/8th graders, and Football for grades 7th/8th!
Middle School is a great time to start sports as there is a no-cut policy! Pre-season starts August 24, with practices after school as of August 31.
Learn more at:
Schedules: https://www.ashland.k12.or.us/o/ams/page/schedules
Registration:
https://students.arbitersports.com/organizations/ashland-middle-school
Middle school needs a sports physical on file before students can attend, practice or games. The form can be found on the registration page above.
(Thanks to Ruth Nelson-Moore for sharing!)
Waldorf education leans heavily on storytelling from the class teacher, and a quieter brain is a hungrier one. When a child's mind isn't full of screen noise, they arrive in the classroom more eager for story, more open to the images their teacher offers, and more receptive to the way that story carries the curriculum and the learning happening in class. Less screen time at home makes more room for that magic to land.
As we gear up for a new school year, we're hoping to restock our art and office supplies, and we need your help! If you're doing any back-to-school tidying, please keep an eye out for:
- Art supplies (paints, brushes, paper, colored pencils, you name it)
- Office supplies (tape, staplers, folders, sticky notes, etc.)
- And especially those beautiful student watercolors that never quite made it to grandma's fridge! If you've got a stash of extras tucked in a drawer somewhere, we'd love to give them a second life in our school. We use them for so many things!
Our Blue Bag program takes your recyclable cans and bottles and turns them into books, projectors, and field trips for our school. A grateful thank you for all those families participating! Now, to build on this successful fundraiser, we're streamlining the program: just bring in your cans and bottles! No blue bagging required. Simply drop a plastic bag of recyclables off at the front of the school, and we'll take care of the rest.
Be on the lookout for a tall Waldorf-flavored trashcan on wheels out at the front of the school at drop-off and pick-up. Or, just hand us a bag of cans!
If you'd like to keep using our QR coded blue bags, we'll have plenty on hand in the front hallway. We've raised over a thousand dollars so far, and we're looking forward to many more!
We feel so grateful we’ve had the pleasure of enjoying many days outside this summer! But we do know September is Smoke Season in the Rogue Valley.
In the case of smoke rolling in around the start of school, we will have the air purifiers and AC units running at all times. We will track the air quality on Air Now, and decide on outdoor recesses or classes based on the following AQI scale:
Good (green): Recess and outdoor classes okay.
Moderate (yellow): Recess and outdoor classes okay.
Unhealthy for sensitive groups (orange): Recess and outdoor classes okay; masks recommended for sensitive children.
Unhealthy (red): Recess and outdoor classes moved inside. When outdoors, masks are highly recommended.
Any index past red will automatically move all recesses and outdoor classes inside. School will operate on the full-day schedule if the AQI is 0-150. In extreme circumstances, when the AQI is forecasted to reach 151 or higher by 12:00 noon, school may operate on a half-day schedule.
PLEASE SEND YOUR CHILD TO SCHOOL WITH A MASK on the first day of school in the case of smoke. Thank you!
If there's one item you label, make it your child's water bottle! We'd love all jackets and sweaters to have labels, but that's hard if you're intending to pass them down or re-sell them. But, if you want an item to return to you, please label it. And inevitably every two months or so, we end up with a glut of unlabled water bottles that end up at Goodwill.
Looking for hardworking parents that love our school! If possible, bring gloves, rakes, a couple extra wheelbarrows, water, snacks, and a joyful presence. There is no childcare provided so please be respectful and watch your children. There is a lot of raking, weeding, and spreading of wood chips. We also need some tough hands for some circular sanding. (We will provide masks and earplugs.) The more help, the better our school looks!
Thank you! Mr. Smith (Groundskeeper and Woodworking Teacher)
The Siskiyou School
Email: office@siskiyouschool.org
Website: www.siskiyouschool.org
Location: 631 Clay Street, Ashland, OR, USA
Phone: 541-482-8223