School's Out for Summer

To my surprise, Amelia "graduated" from pre-school this year! Her pre-school has mixed age classrooms so ages 3 through 5 are altogether. I knew many of the kids were moving on to kindergarten, but I didn't know that they allow every kid to "graduate" so that no one feels left out. What a surprise it was to see my little girl adorning a cap and gown upon the start of the presentation!! I didn't even bring my camera--oops!

Amelia with one of her teachers--Ms. Higgins

Amelia with her other teacher--Ms. Kirchmer

Amelia's paraeducator--Miss Lorenza

The fam at "graduation".

The graduate that Amelia decorated. She was very particular about it having blonde hair and blue eyes. She even gave it rosy cheeks.

Upon entrance into the room, Amelia could hardly contain her excitement. She was next to her best school bud, Gigi and the two of them spent the ENTIRE time giggling. I'm sure it didn't help that we were seated approximately two feet from her.

The group sang 5 songs and they did a great job. I'm pretty sure next year at her real "graduation" I will need to bring a tissue or twenty.

After the songs, each child got to cross a bridge, receive a diploma, and then tell into a microphone what they would like to be when they grow up. Amelia's answer? A princess! Where did I go wrong--ugh??

So let the summer break begin! Only 6 weeks before she is back to the books!

First Ever Parent Teacher Conference

WARNING! This post contains significant and uncharacteristic parental bragging. What can I say though? My kid is awesome!

About a month ago, Jason and I had the pleasure of attending Amelia's first Parent-Teacher conference and I can only hope that all of them from here on out go as well as this one. I was surprisingly nervous, but also very curious to hear how my little lady is doing in her first school setting.

Perhaps the most interesting observation her teacher made (over and over again) is that Amelia has advanced fine motor skills for her age. This is really not a surprise since the same observation was made by her Parents As Teachers educator since around 18 months. However, apparently at school, it is Amelia's cutting skills in particular that has impressed her teacher. At one point, she pulled out a sheet that had various lines drawn (straight, zigzag, curvy, etc.) that the kids were supposed to following while cutting with the scissors. I am pretty sure Amelia's cutting work sample was better than what I could have done. Freakishly good, the teacher compared her to a 5-6 year old. She also mentioned that Amelia likes to cut strings of yarn during choice time and make art with them by gluing them on paper.

This, of course, is especially humorous given her recent run in with the scissors.

The teacher also mentioned that Amelia has no problems transitioning from home to school (in fact, not a single tear has been shed) and gets along well with the other children. She shares, take turns, and seeks help from the teacher if she assistance resolving a problem. She listens to the stories, participates in discussions, sings the songs, and engages other kids in play at recess. According to the teacher, she chooses to play with the dollhouse during choice time, as well as cooking in the kitchen, dressing up, and playing with the sensory table (in addition to the yarn cutting, apparently).

Her teacher was pleased with Amelia's knowledge of her shapes, colors, letters, and numbers. She is able to sort by two different characteristics. She guesses that Amelia will be reading by next year given what she already knows and how quickly she is picking up letter sounds (and she even had a plan on how to help her accomplish this!). Also, by the time she enters kindergarten, she predicts Amelia will be skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's. She complimented her language and said it is more comparable to the 5 year olds in the class than the 3 year olds (hard to believe considering I was at one time worried about her speech development). At one point during the conference, she mentioned that she could tell that Amelia is from "good genes" and asked if Jason was a doctor. She even complimented Amelia's advanced way of holding the pencil--apparently some kindergardeners haven't even perfected a grip that impressive. Interestingly, though, I have NEVER shown her how to hold the pencil a certain way.

She doesn't have any academic concerns about Amelia starting kindergarten so young (she will just BARELY be 5). Of course, we will be revisiting this before we make the decision whether to send her at age 5 or not.

On her written comments, the teacher referred to Amelia as a "very bright little girl with a vast knowledge of vocabulary words". She also called her a "fun child!".

Not surprisingly, Jason and I were pretty impressed with her teacher as well. She was so knowledgeable about every topic we discussed. Our 15 minute conference turned into a 45 minute discussion. I was impressed to learn that her teacher has her Master's degree plus 30. I don't know a whole lot about pre-school teachers, but I find it hard to believe that that is common. We were happy that she was eager to discuss her thoughts on Amelia's future and gave us some great input about her (possible) future elementary school if we were to stay in this area.

I can hardly wait to see what she has to say at Amelia's spring conference! This was definitely a proud parent moment (if you can't already tell!).

Straight from the Teacher's Mouth

Not that I'm a proud mama or anything, but I got this voicemail message from her teacher one week into preschool. And, in case you were wondering, yes, I did dictate it word for word. You got a problem with that?

Hi Jodi,

This is Amelia's teacher, _______ ___________. I just wanted to call everyone and let them know how their kids are doing. Amelia is doing fantastic! Its like she's been coming to pre-school for years. She comes in with no separation anxiety, understands to hang her backpack up, and just follows the routine so well! She easily goes from activity to activity and helps us sing our songs and things. When she gets to school, she often goes to the writing center or sensory table. And she also likes to play with a little doll house during our free choice time. But she is doing a great job, it doesn't seem like she is shy or hesitant or anything--doing wonderful with everybody. Just wanted to let you know what a great job she is doing with everybody and we'll be seeing you through the year!

Yep, that's 2 greats, 1 wonderful, and a fantastic for good measure! So far so good....

School Days

We're back in town and Amelia started pre-school today! Things went much better than I could have expected! In fact, as soon as she was up and dressed this morning, her backpack did not leave her body.

She even ate breakfast with it on!

Shortly before we left, we took our dog outside for a bit. Amelia decided to pick a flower for each of her teachers (dandelions, of course!). She was so proud to give them to her teachers and I was proud of her for coming up with the idea all on her own.

I started to get really nervous as we were pulling up. Parents were expected to stay in the room for 45 minutes on the first day to meet the teacher and help their children get acclimated. I told Amelia ahead of time about the procedure and about 10 minutes into our classroom visit, she asked, "When are you leaving mom?".

We made a duck upon our arrival (the mascot for her school are the ducklings). Then she found the "Costume Castle". Needless to say, she was enthralled! She has two teachers and a teacher assistant in the classroom and both the teachers I met were great. Obviously, the teacher who is responsible for Amelia did her homework. She knew all kind of facts about Amelia (I think that Amelia must be the youngest child in the class) and sucked her right into the classroom by showing her where the costumes and baby dolls were located. We also visited the two classroom gerbils and the fish tank.

When it was time for the parents to go, children were melting down left and right. Not Amelia, though, she gave me a hug and kiss upon my insistence and with a "bye Mom" she was off--back to the Costume Castle, of course.

After a short information session for the parents, I stopped by my friend, Amy's house because she was hosting her usual bi-weekly Coffee Club. Its always a great time with other moms and kids and today was a special "boo-hoo" edition for those moms with children starting school today. (Our school district elementary schools all started today, too).

When it was time to go get Amelia, I started to get a little nervous again. I contemplated parking the car and heading inside to get her so she wouldn't have to wait for me, but decided I would go through the pick-up lane instead. When the teacher brought her to the car, she was not the happy child I expected to see. Instead, she got in and immediately said, "But I didn't want to leave my classroom yet, mommy!". I heard this same phrase at least 8 more times on the short drive home.

Amelia was full of details (which mostly included information about her visits to the Costume Castle. She said her teachers and the other kids were nice and they read a book about a duck that got stuck in the mud. They also had a snack---bagels, apparently.

And that is about all I learned about her first day. As I was driving away, I waved at Amelia's teacher who was helping another child into a car. She gave me the thumbs up sign and said "Good Day!" so I think that is the best I could hope for---a happy kid and a happy teacher!

Here's hoping all future days are this easy!