Preschool

I guess it's official, Kate and AJ have had their first day of preschool. On Tuesday, when I took the pics, we really just had about 30 minutes of "school" activities, the rest was the moms just figuring things out. Today was their first day with activities for the whole time. All in all, the kids did great, and not just mine, but all of them. There are seven kids in their class, including them. The teacher is the mom of one of the girls, and then the helpers are the mom whose house it is in and then today, me. It was good to be there and see their reactions to all the new things, like just sitting in a circle. None of the kids have been in any kind of school setting before, so even something like that is a new concept. I think Kate and AJ are going to like it. There is one girl younger than them, but all the rest are a little bit older, not much, but apparently enough to have a little bit longer attention span. We had to repeatedly bring Kate and especially AJ, back to the group. It wasn't a big deal, though, which is good, he started catching on and doing better. I won't be there to help every day, but it will be nice to be there some just to watch them engaged with the other kids and absorbing the new things. Today, the teacher's theme was all about how God made each of us special and it also helped them get to know each other's names. She had a mirror that she let each of them see themselves. On Tuesday, she had taken head shots of each of the kids. She had laminated those pictures and used the pictures to help the kids find their seats in the circle. Then she had made the pictures smaller and put them on a Popsicle stick with a little body cut out. She read Eric Carle's book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? After the book, she used these little "people" to help the kids identify each other by asking them, "AJ, AJ, Who do you see?". At the end of class, she gave each mom a paper with all their names and pictures on them so they could go home with us for the kids to see and remember their friends in class. Needless to say, I was impressed. She was very organized and very relaxed about the whole day. I am so thankful to have been invited to this for our short time here.

AJ likes his backpack. Funny boy. Kate was very into posing today. Ok, even though they aren't both smiling, I love that I actually got them to hold hands for the picture. This is their class, and I love that she has grabbed all of their attention, even if they're not in a circle. Hard to do with this age!
More to come later!