First Day of Preschool

Today was Little Man’s first day of preschool. He goes to a co-op school which means that each class a different parent stays in the classroom to help out the teacher. Today I was the co-oping parent so that made for a much easier transition for him. The only time he cried was when he learned it was time to go home and the only thing that made him calm down was the promise that he could come back tomorrow.

The first hour and a half of school is free time. And he played freely! He painted and painted then he helped some of the other kids with their paintings. Then he moved to play dough which he mashed and rolled and cut out. Then it was on to the trucks and buses and fire trucks and the water table. Oh the water table was a big hit! But then the highlight of the free play time arrived. One of the mom’s found a toad on the playground and sent it into our classroom in hopes that it would distract some of the kids that were having a hard time missing their parents. And the toad became Little Man’s best friend. He carried it around and rescued it from some of his more overzealous classmates telling them “no touch, you hurt it, no touch”. He even named it Mrs. H. The real Mrs. H (not the toad) thought that was just fine and was very gracious about it.

He enjoyed the playground and pulled a wagon full of girls around for a while. He climbed the …, well he climbed everything that he could climb. Next was snack time and if you ask him about school he will tell you all about snack. He had goldfish and grapes and cheese sticks. At the end of snack time they have rest time, but Little Man didn’t get rest time because he was still eating and eating and eating. He ate his snack, my snack and the snack of the kids sitting next to him. All of the other kids were laying or sitting on their resting mats reading books or listening to music and there was Little Man sitting at the table eating more of his snack. By the time he finally finished eating it was time for story time (Humpty Dumpty) which was an unfortunate choice because Little Man doesn’t like to hear about anyone getting hurt. So he kept taking the felt Humpty Dumpty and putting him back on top of the wall when Mrs. H put him on the ground after “his big fall”. Then it was music time where they played with rhythm sticks. He LOVED being allowed to hit two sticks together are hard and loud as he could and when Mrs. H asked what else they could do with the sticks he growled at her (thanks Uncle Mark) and so she laughed and sang the song with growling and playing the sticks. Then it was down to the activity room to climb on big climbing structures and crawl through tunnels and ride bikes in the hallway. The only time he cried was when he learned he was going to have to go home, but all it took was the promise that he could come back the next day to see Mrs. H and he was a happy little school boy once again.

We are both exhausted and will sleep well tonight. Tomorrow we will see how he does when I have to leave, but I think that painting and playing with the trucks is much more fun than staying home with me!