Preschool

Tyler started preschool this week. He's going to the Woodbury Preschool. Here he is charging into the museum on his first day. He'd had me worried that morning, and even during the car ride to school. He would wimper, "Mommy, please don't leave me at preschool."

I thought we were in for a big meltdown at drop off, but when he got out of the car he really suprized me. He got all excited and started running into the museum. Luckily a good friend had volunteered to stay with Emma so I didn't have to tote her along while trying to keep up.

Here he is, making his "CHEESE!" face at the door of the drop off room. You can see the two teachers, Mrs. Cheryl (standing) and Mrs. Maya (sitting with her back to the camera) in the background. He wanted to burst into the room.
First order of business is putting the book bag (Tyler informs me I can only call it a backpack) in your cubby. He recognized his name when I pointed it out to him, then promptly spelled it for me. He's really into spelling words right now...
And then, he was off. It was time to play and he dove right in, not even stopping to look back at either Steve or me as we were standing, hovering in the doorway. He went straight for the plastic elephants. He has some that are very similar at home and he LOVES playing with them. We had also been to the zoo the day before, so he had animals on the brain.
He took the elephant over to this table to play. Later he informed me, "The king didn't like to live with the elephants... they kept breaking the castle." I guess he was acting out a scene from The King, the Mice, and the Cheese. I hope he didn't do too much damage...

The first day was shortened, only an hour long. They played in the first room for about 50 minutes while the parents went to a conference room for tea & coffee and to hear about the procedures for the preschool. We were given our security badges and had our pictures taken. Then we were allowed into the observation area (there are mirrored windows into one of the rooms so you can see the kids but they can't see you) to watch our kids for the last 10 minutes. It was neat to get to peak at what they were doing. Tyler decided to draw a picture instead of participate in circle time while we were observing. He's very proud of his drawing, which he informed us is a picture of the night.

"The Night"