Loving School

This is Ethan's 2nd full week of school and he is having a blast. Last week they were working on finger paintings and when he came out today he handed me his painting and told me that he had made it especially for me. I of course hung it on the fridge the moment we got home. His teacher, Miss Tiffany, told me when she brought him to the car today that they were doing a project on the light table that involved shaving cream. Ethan went hog wild. She had fun cleaning him up but she warned me that I might find shaving cream on him LOL. I told her if it involved being allowed to make a massive mess Ethan will be the first one in line. He definitely had fun and he smells like shaving cream LMAO.

Last week Ethan started feeling sick and he ended up not being able to go to school on Friday because he was running a fever. He was very upset that he couldn't go. He just loves his class so much that not being there made him sad. I am so glad that he is having fun.

PreK

It's official! Ethan is in PreK. His first day of school was yesterday. I walked him in and helped him find his cubby and empty his book bag then I let the teacher take over. It was a quick hug and kiss and I walked away (crying). Ethan on the other hand barely noticed that I walked away. There was so much going on he was too distracted. When I picked him up and his teacher brought him to the car she said he did fantastic that there were no problems at all. She mentioned that as they were packing up to leave he told her that he was starting to get bored and wanted to go home. She told him that was good because they were packing up to leave. He was just bored because the teachers had stood them in line under their name tags in the hall and made sure that the right book bag was going home with the right kid so they weren't doing anything. I guess he asked her one time where his mom was and she just told him that his mom would be there to pick him up soon and then directed him to an activity and that was that. He had no tears when he realized I was not there he just accepted it. I tried to get him to tell me what he did in school but he said he couldn't remember LOL. The only thing he told me was that he played on the swings and that a boy hit him and Miss Tiffany put that boy in time out. I have no idea what was going on when the other kid hit him and we aren't making a big deal out of it. I have already told Ethan that Friday when I take him to school I am just going to go through the drop off line that his first day was the only day I was going to walk him in. The school is in a church and the hallway to the preschool part is narrow so they don't want much foot traffic going through it for good reason. The way the drop off line works is the parent pulls right up to the doors and one of the 3 teachers will come out and safely take the child into the building. At the end of the day they look at the number that parents were given at the parent/teacher meeting a few weeks back and match that number to the number attached to the childs book bag and bring the child out by the hand and put the child in their seat. The only thing they ask of the parents is if the kid needs help getting buckled just pull the car down the driveway and off to the curb so they can keep the line moving. They don't want the line to get too long and possibly block up the church parking lot. It works out very well especially if you have another child with you. That way you don't have to get them out and then back in. I liked it yesterday because Finlay was sleeping so I didn't have to disturb his little nap. It's a pretty efficient way of keeping the kids safe. Ethan will only be going 3 days a week (MWF) and class is from 9-11:30. There are 2 classes one for the 3/4 year olds and the other is PreK for the ones who will be going to kindergarden next year. They fill that 2.5 hours with a lot of activity at 9 they go outside to play to help burn some energy then at 9:15 they do hand washing and snacks. The rest of the time is filled with story time, song time, news time (where kids can share any interesting things they want), they do an experiment, play with a purpose, and finally clean up and pack up. Each segment lasts about 15 minutes because at the age of 4 that's about the length of their attention span. It helps keep them from getting bored. Also twice a week each kid will get one on one time with the teacher where they will work on skills they need to have for kindergarden. At the end of the year the teacher will do a mock kindergarden readiness test and if there is anything they are struggling with then she will work on those skills and make sure they can do everything proficiently. He is going to have a fun year.

Ethan started the Fall session of gymnastics last week. They had a week off between the Summer and Fall sessions so he was excited to be back in the class. His Fall class is huge. We counted 11 kids. Because there are so many kids there are 2 instructors for the class. One instructor runs the warm ups on the mat and then they split up the kids into 2 even numbered groups. Fortunately Ethan ended up with Rob who was his coach over the summer. When I signed Ethan up for the Fall I was very specific in making sure that Ethan stayed in Rob's class. We like the way he runs the class and Ethan responds very well to him. I am thinking that the office worker made a note of that to Rob so that when the class got split he took Ethan into his instruction. Ethan likes Rob, if Rob has to yell at him to get him to do something right Ethan gets upset because he doesn't like it when his coach is upset (too bad he can't have that attitude at home). Between gymnastics and school Ethan is going to have a fun filled year.