Enjoy the Holiday Season Close to Home at Ten Trails 

Travel plans may have changed for the holidays but there are plenty of ways to celebrate this wonderful season of giving in your new Ten Trails home!

Give Back to Your Local Community 

The local Black Diamond Community Center is always in need of donations for its food pantry. Give back to others less fortunate this holiday season by donating items like canned goods, diapers, and toothbrushes. For a full list of immediate needs for the food bank, see the Black Diamond Community Center website.  Items for donation can be dropped off in the donation bin outside of the Ten Trails Welcome Center.

Family Holiday Crafts

What better way to celebrate the holidays than to decorate your brand new home for the season? Make decorating a family event by taking part in fun crafts that the whole family can participate in like wreath-decorating, stringing popcorn garland, or ornament making. If you are in need of inspiration, there are a ton of holiday craft ideas on Pinterest.

Take Part in Ten Trails’ Second Annual Light up Your Hometown Event 

Ten Trails is happy to share we are once again hosting a “Light up Your Hometown” competition for residents! Decorate your home with holiday lights by December 10^th and you will be automatically entered to win one of several huge gift card prizes. Check your weekly emails from our HOA for details.

Drive-Through Hometown Holiday Light Display at Ten Trails Dec 12 through New Year’s Day

Residents and the public can also take part in the holiday fun. Beginning December 12^th and all evenings through New Year’s Day, visit our Facebook page to grab a map of a suggested route to navigate you through Ten Trails to see all the amazing community lights including our huge holiday tree on top of the knoll in our Village Green Park. We hope you can make time for this drive-through holiday light showcase this season! www.TenTrails.com 360.469.4043          

Ten Trails residents of elementary school age attend the nearby Black Diamond Elementary School where small class sizes, a whole-child based mission and focus on technology in the classrooms creates a robust learning environment for children. Read on to learn more about this brand new school located in historic Black Diamond, WA and their newest Principal, Tim Lee.

Black Diamond Elementary School Mission and Strategic Plan 

The school’s strategic plan incorporates a mission of Habits, Hands & Heart and Head, ensuring the equity of all students achieving at high levels. School staff aligns resources to support the students and community-based learning. Instruction focuses on the whole child, ensuring that each student is healthy, safe, engaged, supported and challenged. The school maintains a focus on instructional improvement to create positive, powerful learning experiences for students, each period, each day.

Instruction to Focus on the Whole Child 

Principal Tim Lee, emphasizes that the school’s curriculum is focused on promoting the long-term success of students through an approach that treats each child as an individual with his or her own unique learning style and needs. Because of the schools’ small class sizes and relatively small student body, Lee and his educators can have one-on-one interaction with each child, and also quickly intervene when a child may need extra assistance both academically and emotionally. The school organizes small groups designed to help children with a wide range of life and family challenges such a grief, divorce and social and emotional skills.

Technology in the Black Diamond Elementary School Classrooms 

Teachers at the Black Diamond Elementary School embrace the use of technology in the classroom and offer students the use of Chromebooks as part of their daily work plan. Inside the modern classrooms in the new school, teachers’ instruction is conducted on projector screens versus traditional chalk or dry erase boards. The elementary students can be found sitting in non-traditional grouping of “pods” of desks or other configurations of groupings to encourage collaboration and small-group based learning. Lee emphasizes that this group-based learning helps prepare students for when they eventually enter the workforce where tasks are conducted largely in group settings. The school is also proud of their robotics program that allows students to work together to write code to make a small robot perform basic functions.

Emphasis on Literacy 

Black Diamond Elementary School places a strong emphasis on literacy with students taking part in a minimum of one hour of small group reading per day. The school library offers students access to a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts as well as life-skills programs to teach students about how to avoid plagiarism when writing, and how to navigate the internet safely. Black Diamond Elementary School is located just a few miles from Ten Trails at 25314 Baker St, Black Diamond, WA 98010. Keep up with all the latest news and information by following the school on their Facebook page. 360.469.4043 www.TenTrails.com  

Get to Know the Ten Trails Village Green Park

Just over an acre in size and located directly adjacent to the popular Civic Park, the Village Green Park at Ten Trails is a great spot for taking in one of our many community events, enjoying views of Mount Rainier, or playing a game of catch with the neighbors.

Mount Rainier Viewpoint at Ten Trails 

The Village Green Park at Ten Trails was designed with a large viewing hill in the center of the park to offer spectacular views of Mount Rainier on a clear day. The hilltop’s boulder landscaping and colorful Adirondack chairs provide a cozy seating area to catch the reflection of the sun setting over Mount Rainier.

Summer Concerts in the Village Green Park at Ten Trails 

The Village Green Park has also been the location for some of Ten Trails’ bigger summer concerts in the park like our concert featuring Aaron Crawford in August 2019 which attracted thousands of visitors to the community.

Location for Holiday Events at Ten Trails 

The Village Green Park serves as one of the main hubs for other large-scale events hosted in the community! Our annual Easter Egg Hunt and Christmas Tree Lighting both take place inside the park. For a list of upcoming events in the community, check out our events page. www.TenTrails.com 360.469.4043  

Nearby Events this Holiday Season If you didn’t get enough holiday fun at our Hometown Holiday event last weekend, don’t fret! Ten Trails residents still have plenty of activities to choose from to celebrate this magical time of year!

December 14^th Hometown Christmas in Black Diamond

From 10 am until 3 pm on December 14^th, head to historic downtown Black Diamond for the Black Diamond Historical Society’s annual Hometown Christmas event! Meet Santa and Mrs. Claus as well as Frosty the Snowman and take part in a ton of activities like cookie-decorating, face-painting, and more! All are welcome, and the kids’ activities are free.

December 14^th Christmas Rush Fun Run and Walk                  

Before heading to Hometown Christmas, bring the family to nearby Kent for the Christmas Rush Fun Run/Walk at Hogan Park. Registration begins at 8 am, the 10k runners start at 9:50 am and the 5K at 10 am. Registration is open until the day of the event and costs $25 per participant.

Now through January 5^th: Zoolights at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium 

Take a quick drive to nearby Tacoma for their annual Zoolights holiday display! 700,000 LED lights transform the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium into a winter wonderland complete with 3D animal light displays sure to dazzle the youngest members of your family.

Holiday Lights at Ten Trails 

Bundle up and take a stroll or family drive through Ten Trails during any given evening this holiday season to check out our spectacular holiday lights display! Our common areas, Welcome Center, and many of our residential homes are lit up with holiday cheer. For even more holiday events in the Puget Sound area check out Seattle Times’ Winter Guide! www.TenTrails.com 360.469.4043    

Visit the Nearby Black Diamond Library

The Black Diamond Library is a wonderful local resource for residents of Ten Trails, and is located within walking or biking distance from the community via the new Roberts Drive Rock Creek Bridge. The library provides programs for children and families, art workshops, and Family Story Time events on select Mondays throughout the year.

Origin of the Black Diamond Library

The City of Black Diamond has had a library in one form or another since 1917, when volunteers gathered book donations and began a library in a small room in the old Pacific Coast Hotel. As the donations increased and space became limited, the library had to be moved to the nearby former railroad depot which today is known as the Black Diamond Historical Museum Depot.

Historical Timeline for the Black Diamond Library

During WWII, the library had to shut down due to lack of volunteers available to run it. To help ensure the residents of Black Diamond still had access to books, the King County Rural Library District (known today as the King County Library System) began offering mobile book lending services twice a month to residents. The library reopened in June of 1945 in the old depot building with new books and was designated as a branch of the King County Rural Library District. The library remained at the depot for 12 more years until it was relocated to a small cottage on Lawson Street. There it remained until 1968 when it was moved to the city’s new municipal building. The library was fully annexed into the King County Library System in 1990 and operated out of a leased space from 1991 until the new building that exists today was opened in 2008.

Black Diamond Library Today 

Today, the Black Diamond library is located at 24707 Roberts Drive, just shy of one mile from the Willow Avenue entrance to Ten Trails. The beautiful new building was designed by architects at the Miller Hull Partnership to reflect the late 19^th century architecture that is predominant in the city. On a clear day, the library offers stunning views of Mount Rainier from the main reading area.

Friends of the Black Diamond Library 

Residents of Ten Trails are encouraged to get involved with their local library. The Friends of the Black Diamond Library group meets on the third Wednesday of each month at 5pm in the library’s conference room. Dues are $5, and the group holds fundraisers throughout the year to benefit the library including the annual book sale and an annual plant sale held on the first Saturday each May. The library is having a book sale this Thursday, October 17^th from 10 am to 6 pm. Purchase used books, videos and CDs at bargain prices to help support library programming throughout the year. www.TenTrails.com 360-469-4043

Head to the Black Diamond Miner’s Day Festival this Weekend

Ten Trails families looking for a fun activity to do this weekend can head to nearby downtown, historic Black Diamond on Saturday, July 13^th to take part in their annual Miner’s Day festival! The event kicks off at 9 am with a 5k race that begins with the sound of the historic coal mining siren. Fun activities will be held throughout the day, with entertainment for all ages including a donut-eating contest held at 11:30 am. For a full festival schedule, visit the Black Diamond Miner’s Day festival website.

Women’s Suffrage Theme

The theme of this year’s Miner’s Day is “Women’s Suffrage Centennial” to commemorate the 100-year anniversary that women were given the right to vote. The festival’s traditional fashion show will give a nod to the theme with many examples of women’s attire in the early 1900’s, along with a women’s suffrage skit that will take place at noon.

Stop by our Ten Trails Tent

Don’t forget to visit our Ten Trails tent at Miner’s Day to learn more about the community, meet our friendly team and grab some Ten Trails giveaways! www.TenTrails.com 360-469-4043