First Official Day of Preschool

Michael's first day of preschool went beautifully. The children were amazing. Ava didn't mind at all that she was leaving the house without her brother (she gets dropped off an hour earlier than he does now). Michael didn't seem at all sad to see her going off to his "old school". My husband and I dropped Michael off together taking a couple of "first day of school" pictures. He did beautifully. He walked into his classroom. When his teacher walked him over to a table full of name tags for each children he immediately recognized his name, picked it up, and handed it to her for help putting it on. Then he just took off for the toys and children without even looking back in our direction.

Two and a half hours later I headed back to the school and sat through my first pick-up line of cars. He walked out with his class. I took his hand and buckled him into his car seat and that was that. He told me that they didn't do art. After some questioning, I realized that meant they used crayons rather than paint that day. He had colored fish crackers for snack which was very exciting. He also got to choose his own drink from the refrigerator. He chose white milk, but next time he's going to choose chocolate. He also informed me that their refrigerator is much colder than ours. The milk was so cold it almost hurt his mouth. He also mentioned that there are a lot of new friends at school but one boy did push past him to get up the slide. He was also a bit disappointed that he was on the preschool playground rather than the larger playground for the elementary children. He told me there were two circle times. One at the beginning of the day and one right at the end. He also wanted to know when the next school day was.

I thought I got a pretty amazing amount of detail about his first day and was pleased that he seemed to be looking forward to going back again in a couple of days. We went home, ate lunch, and then left again to get Ava from daycare. When his former teachers asked him how school was he explained carefully to them that now he's going to "three and a half school" not "two and a half school". Apparently that's what he thinks is going on. I do adore that child.

It was a great beginning.

A Completely Unexpected Gift

My cousin (also a parent of an adorable preschooler) sent my children a completely unexpected gift. I had no idea it was on the way so when we found the package in the mailbox it was a surprise for all of us. The package was addressed to Michael and Ava so they watched me open it. Inside were some dvds of their favorite television shows (New Handy Manny, yea!) We don't usually watch tv in the evening, but I made a special exception and the children watched their gift while I had some time to myself. It was a wonderful surprise for everyone. All thanks to the thoughtfulness of my cousin. Thanks!

It reminded me of how powerful a random act of kindness can be. I'll need to pass it on.

What Can You Do With Stale Froot Loops?

So the kids and I tried an art activity we saw in one of our High Five magazines. (I really like these magazines. Definitely worth checking them out if you're at all interested.) First we sorted froot loops by color. I had a child on each side of me and I sent the orange, green and blue ones in Michael's direction and he sorted those while Ava sorted the purple, yellow, and red I sent her way. When we were done the table looked like this:

I then dumped each color of froot loop into its own baggie. The idea was to let the children crush the froot loops to dust inside the baggies. I learned that it is very difficult to crush froot loops into dust - possibly because ours were very stale. Also, I recommend freezer bags rather than the regular type. Ours began leaking dust before we were done. First we tried just crushing by hand without much success. Then I let them bang on them with the baby food jars. That worked to some extent. Then we tried a play dough rolling pin also without much success. Finally I got out a mortar and pestle and finished it up. So, after much effort and letting the kids play a little after they got bored, we finally ended up with this very pretty result:

After gathering everyone back at the table I let the children spoon the "colored cheerio dust", as they called it, into baby food jars to create a decorative end product. They liked the activity and the jars are actually quite pretty. I just need to figure out some way to top them off. I'm thinking a square of scrap cloth held on with a rubber band but I haven't gotten that far yet.

We all had fun with the process which is more important than the product anyway. I'm trying to decide what to do with the leftover supply. I am thinking I'll put some glue on paper and let them sprinkle the dust on. We'll let that dry and see how it comes out.