He was up at 6:05. Took him downstairs and I took a shower. Carly headed to work and he watched some Magic Schoolbus until we we got ready to leave. We got walking at 7:40. I took a photo of him on the front porch for his first day of preschool. Got a photo of him adjusting his hair to the side. On the walk he noticed that the pen marks on his leg were faded (mainly from his bath). He said he called it “Pensing” although he should call it “pencilling”. He also said “It should just be preschoo” with no L.
We got to class at 8:05. He went and played at the light table. After awhile I went and sat outside, right out the window where he could see me. I saw him talking to other kids as they played at the table. He came and brought me in 8:30. Told me “I’m gonna find something new.” He did art. He made shapes, starting with eighths. And I found out about their field trip next week, to a farm. I looked at a 300 Wild Flowers of Israel book to identify the big white flower we saw yesterday. August helped, remembering it didn’t have the big petals around the outside. Something like ainswoethia, wild carrot, toothpick, or crown flower, but not exactly any of them.
We went in the forest area and he tried things on and sat on the squishy rocks. He then went upstairs in the loft and played in the kitchen area. A girl tried to go down the stairs head first on her hands and knees and he was stopping her by holding onto her ankle until one of the teachers told her it was dangerous to go down the stairs like that. Later he told me they had been playing a game where they were keeping babies from being dangerous – the girl was being a baby trying to crawl down stairs.
For morning meeting at 9:10 he was concerned he wouldn’t be able to see me. Convinced him he could, then he went to the meeting. They started by singing “Five little speckled frogs…eating the most delicious bugs.”
They went outside for a snack. The lawn had been aerated and we examined the chunks. He only ate the crackers for snack, and one bite of the white cheese. They taught him how to wash his plate and then they went to the playground.
Out on the playground he first played on the seesaw with Selma and another girl when Selma asked him. he played on the car a bit with other boys, pretending it was a police car, then wanted to go make something in the kitchen. I went down with him. PKA had come out, and a bunch of kids he knew were there: Daniel (from coding), Bar, Julia, and some of the girls from Hebrew (Maya, Ledeuh). He played in the sand my Daniel and I taught him how a sifter worked. Bar came over and started laying with him and I retreated to the other end of the playground. At one point he came all the way over and said he couldn’t see me, but I told him he now knew where I was and he ran back to Bar.
He was then playing with Bar and a big group of kids as they ran around, away from a monster, apparently. They ran over to the PKA classroom and August got me to go with. Eventually back on the playground he said he was getting bored, but then he went across to the bushes where a girl was playing with them. He was over there for several minutes, then came over to me. He played on the seesaw again with another girl. The playground had gotten busy with all three preschool classes out there.
They went inside before 11 for a story: Olive and the Big Secret. Then to music class, up in the classroom where they have Hebrew and coding classes. The teacher for that is Vicki, one of the PKA teachers. He insisted I sit in the room. He really liked the waving things and scarves. Took him to the bathroom where he was working on doing things on his own, like pulling up his underwear and shorts, then they went downstairs to a quick meeting before exploratory time.
He went to the clay table along with Candy. He made a tea cup with Marian, then did an abstract sculpture. Then went over and looked at the kestrals and the eggs on projector. It’s actually a nesting pair on campus and a webcam is set up. Then more light table time.
Outside for lunch. I sat on the ground next to August in his chair. He said with Nicholas, Emmett, and Derin. Did a lot of talking about zoos. Nicholas told him his hair was getting long and that Nicholas had gotten a hair cut so “I don’t look like a girl.” August responded with “I have a button. Beep! I’m a girl!” I pointed out that Emmett’s bangs were just as long and that Yaya has long hair.
Then inside to rest time. He had a mattress over by the entryway. They didn’t have to nap (about 4 did), but the lights were low and there was classical music on. They got out the books so the kids could look at books. We read a book about a house by the sea and Corduroy Loves the Library and looked at a couple others. After the kids that take naps were asleep they let the others get up and they sat and watched two stories on the projector on YouTube. They are from something called Storyline Online. The second was called The Garbage Barge and was really funny. They then got ready for P.E. time at 2. Yaya had lay down on the floor again, sans mattress, and Emmett said he was pretending to sleep and was even poking him and opening his eyes. Turns out he had actually fallen asleep for a nap as well.
They went over to the P.E. time with a teacher named Dion. We’ve seen these P.E. classes quite a bit as we walk to school and I wasn’t impressed – a lot of time with kids lined up and being talked to. But I was pleasantly surprised when he started them playing games like from August’s activity class. But during the first, when they would run, then act like an animal, August ran over to me and said “Dada, he said I can’t stand like a flamingo!…Can you teach me how to stand like a flamingo?” Then there was a game where Dion was the Cookie Monster knocking sprinkles (balls) off of cookies (cones). Dion was saying he was “winning” and August didn’t like that it was a winning game. He came and told me “I hated that game.” I heard him saying that a bit later as well. Dion ended with “Boys get the balls, girls get the cones.”
They went back to the classroom and finished with storytime with Myriam. She read one book, then was going to read The Book with No Pictures, but couldn’t find it. The bus kids left, and we waited out with the other kids waiting for their parents. August was putting the holes back in the grass so it would dry out. Once the bell rang I took him over to Carly’s classroom and dropped him off with her. I went back and met with Maarian and Anna to debrief how it went. All agreed it went well, but they immediately started talking about transitioning me out of the classroom and how it is okay if he cries. So felt like a bait and switch. Agreed to try leaving during morning meeting tomorrow.
As I walked back to Carly’s classroom I saw them walking across to the cafeteria. I caught up and they went and got some blue chips as a snack. The guy at the cafeteria gave August some sort of treat. We sat out on the couches outside and ate the chips. We then dropped Carly off at her classroom. He and I stopped to play with the darts and he tested the magnets on them out on all the metal things he could find. And we looked at the art in the cabinets by the office. We stopped on a bench to eat his sandwich and discuss peanut allergies. We left the school at 4:15. He surprised me by asking out of the blue “Why in our home in Thailand when we went in the hall there was an alarm?” Pretty sure we’ve never even mentioned that alarm in the hallway since we left Thailand.
We walked home, and Carly got home just a few minutes after us. He played with slime, then with the Duplo fence pieces. He wanted me to be a baby. He was the mom. Carly was the dada. He was keeping me from taking the fence pieces; “I don’t want you to choke baby.” We discussed me leaving from preschool class for awhile tomorrow.
We had wraps for dinner outside. August didn’t want the whole wrap: “Here’
s the deal: I only want the chicken.” He asked what “the coast is clear” means. I asked where he knew that from and he said from Sisters, which we haven’t read in quite awhile. We discussed the ‘winning’ game at school, which ended in a tie. He said “When someone doesn’t like winning and there’s winning tie is the best. Why? Because someone else is winning and you’re happy they’re winning?” When Carly went inside we said “The coast is clear.” Carly came back and he whispered “the coast is not clear.”
Back inside I showed him how to use the clip thing. He asked me “Why did that girl have the powers she can’t control?” He was referring to Frozen, which I’ve told him a little about. Carly took him up for a bath, then got him ready for bed. He was pretty worn out from the long day.
It starts:
Dressing up:
Making a mug:
Sculpture:
Darts:
Looking at the art:
