Archive for the ‘Katelyn's Pre-K adventure’ Category
Top Secret
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Katelyn came home from school yesterday with this bag-
It’s stapled shut. There’s a picture of what appears to be a candle that Katelyn drew, cut and colored stapled to the front with a snowman drawn on the bag underneath the candle.
There is definitely something in it but it’s not very heavy or thick.
Katelyn told me I can’t open the bag until tomorrow after her school Christmas party and that it has to go in her closet until then. So, now, it sits in her closet. I”m amazed at how well she’s keeping this secret. She told our Chiropractor yesterday all about it while I closed my eyes and covered my ears.(Yes, she told me I had to close my eyes too!) He just laughed and said it was awesome and what a great idea. I’ve been a good mom and haven’t peeked.
But I’m dying of curiosity!!
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS IN THIS BAG????
Any guesses???
School Interview With Katelyn
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009
Now that Katelyn is an old pro at going to Pre-K three times a week I figured I’d interview her on some of her deep thoughts about school.
How do you like your new school? Good.
Who’s your favorite teacher? Ms. Tilley
What’s your favorite thing to do at school? Play with Polly Pockets during free play , do my letter work sheets and sing songs
What are some of the rules you have to follow? Like pray before lunch, no nuts, get in line and sit quietly.
What do you not like to do at school? Nothing
Have you gotten in trouble at school? No
Do any other kids get in trouble? Yes Who? Matthew and Shawn and I think that’s it. Sometimes Katherine does.
What do they do that gets them in trouble? I don’t know! Mom, you don’t have to worry about my friends. (This was said in a sassy and annoyed tone which got her a stern speaking to)
Who’s your best friend at school? Katherine and Isabell
What’s your favorite lunch for school? Yogurt, grapes, apples, turkey and cheese sandwich
Can you tell me something you’ve learned at school?To write letters and my name
Now that your four years old are there things you can do now that you couldn’t do when you were three? I can write perfect “K’s” and my name. I couldn’t do that when I was three.
So there you have it. A deep and though provoking interview with a four year old girl.
I Don’t Know What To Think About This
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
“Mama, who am I going to marry?” asked Katelyn the other day.
“Sweetie, I don’t know. God will give you someone to marry when you get older.”
” Can I marry daddy?”
“No, you can’t marry daddy. I’m married to daddy”
“But when you’re done with daddy can I marry him?”
” Uh.No”
“How about Papa. Can I marry him?”
“Nope. Papa is married to Nana. And… He’s your Papa”
“Can Garrett (her cousin) marry me?”
“Sweetie, no, you have to marry someone who isn’t in your family”
“Ok, how about Eddie?” (He’s a boy in her class and also the son/grandson of longtime friends of ours and Mike’s family”
“Well…. that’s a possibility I guess!”
(These were taken a couple of weeks ago after school had let out. They had both sit (sat?) down to chat and we snapped a few quick photos)
Will we be showing these pictures at her wedding in the future I wonder?
So weird to even ponder…
Schoolwork and Videos
Thursday, October 8th, 2009
Katelyn has loved going to school so far. Every now and then she gets a little sad at drop off and doesn’t want me to leave but for the most part she is loving it. I think the structure and focus is really good for her. I’ve been impressed with the academic side of her school so far. But, with them being there only two and a half hours I would hope they did academics rather than lots of free play! Every day at pick up I check to see what she’s eaten of her lunch(I only send three items and haven’t sent anything with nuts it by accident again! Yay me) and check her folder for notes and her work. I’ve really enjoyed looking at her work and reading any notes to me. It feels so “grown up” although I’m really in no rush for all the hub bub of elementary school life for Katelyn. It’s still cute. Madelyn seems to enjoy the drop off and pick up too. She will usually plop herself on the floor or one of the tables and start playing with whatever the older kids are playing with at the time. And then she doesn’t want to leave! I feel sorry for her because she doesn’t understand why she doesn’t get to stay. I make a little “lunch” for her in her lunch box since she gets upset if she doesn’t have something to take too. You can tell she feels so big carrying her lunch box to the car. I usually let her eat in the car on the way home. And sometimes that is her lunch if we are running errands and not going back home before I pick Katelyn up. They kids are now focusing on letters and sounds each week and the teachers said that by the end of the year most of the kids will be able to tell us what sound each of the letters make. Great pre-reading skill!
Oh, and in case I didn’t explain the Kindergarten thing well here’s the deal. Since she will technically be too young for Kinder next year she will be doing it for two years. If we stay with this school she will do their Kindergarten program next school year. She’ll be almost five. That seems so weird to me!! And if we decide to stay for another year she would do a more advanced version of their Kinder program the following year. They told us that most of the kids go into first grade already knowing half of the stuff the public school is teaching them at that level. So we have the option of sending her to the Faulkner Kindergarten program for two years OR sending her there one year and then to our public Kinder program when she is almost six. We’ll cross that path when we get there. I”m not sure yet what we will do. It would be easier to send her to our public program in two years since it’s right down the road from us and is longer hours. So, we’ll see!
Here are some pictures of her work…
The front of her letter “C” worksheet
The back. She had to circle all the words that started with “C” and color all the pictures that started with the letter “C”. I thought it was funny that she also colored the hand. They get stickers on their papers when they complete their work. So cute!
The teachers sent home these laminated name strips for the kids to practice writing their names at home. They are expected to know how to write their first name by the end of the school year. Their last name is optional. The laminate works like a dry erase board so the kids trace their names with dry erase markers and then we can wipe it off for repeated use. Apparently, I’ve been teaching the Katelyn the wrong way to write her name. Which, was the right way when I was teaching preschool.
I’ve taught Katelyn how to write her name in all upper case since she hadn’t learning lower case letters yet. We had always been told to teach the younger children this way to write to promote consistency and for them to be exposed to the upper case letters all the time to help in letter recognition. Apparently,these teachers and Kindergarten teachers hate this. Because they have to teach the children to write their names all over again the right way. With only the first letter of their name in upper case. Excuuuse me. I won’t be making that mistake again with Madelyn.
This is some of her art work. She painted, cut this out and glued it all herself. It thought she did pretty good with the cutting!
This was her homework! Apparently, many of the k ids with older siblings were asking for homework so they could do it while their older brothers and sisters were doing theirs. So the teachers made up some homework for the kids to do each week. They said it’s optional and that they barely look at it when it’s brought back to school. They just put a sticker on it and tell the children how wonderful they did and hang it on the wall. Katelyn wanted to do this homework but if there is ever a time when she doesn’t want to do it I won’t make her. Since this was Fire Prevention Week they learned a lot about fire safety. So Katelyn had to draw our family meeting spot if our house were to ever catch fire and we were separated trying to escape from our burning house. I told her it would be our detached garage so that’s what she drew. I guess those lines are our garage door??
I created this little corner in our playroom for showing off her school work and for school, dance and awana calendars and notes. I also have a large children’s school calendar to help the girls learn counting, the days of the week, the months of the year and time concepts like “yesterday was”, today is” and” tomorrow will be”. I also have special squares I put on there so Katelyn can see when special events are coming. As you can see by the date I haven’t done anything on the calendar since September 24th!
We hung this neat plastic chain link organizer to show case art work and school work. I got tired of taping stuff on the wall and my stainless steel fridge.
Here are some more videos I wanted to post. These videos are from the day of Katelyn’s birthday party. She got a microphone stand form her Nana and Papa and the girls were having a blast singing with it. Madelyn even put on a little show!
Here they were being silly with their party blowers. Madelyn was really cracking herself up!
And She’s Off!
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
Yes, my first baby girl is off to her second day of Pre-K today! Here’s pictures from yesterday
Doesn’t this picture look like one of those old fashioned ones where the kids don’t smile and just stand there? Wait, I guess kids do that today too!
So excited to go to school in her new dress
Nana and Papa met us at the school so they could see her off on her first day too
Going, going….
Gone!
Katelyn is checking out her seat with her name on her desk area.
The kids line up at 1:55 and the teachers let the kids go to their waiting parents as they see them. They had all gotten tie dyed t-shirts that said “Faulkner Kindergarten” on them.
It was almost Katelyn’s turn…
“There’s my mom!! The one who’s crazily waving and taking pictures at the same time!”
A great first day! Even Maddy was excited.
We went to Nana and Papa’s house afterward for a celebratory tea party. Both girls also received some little Strawberry Shortcake dolls in tiny purses as gifts. It was cute! The battery died on my camera so I didn’t get pictures of the actual tea party. Just the prep. Katelyn poured “tea” (actually chocolate milk) for everyone.
So, I think this is going to be a great thing for Katelyn. I was totally discombobulated yesterday because my routine was totally different. I had no idea what to do or when to do it. I’m definitely going to have to work on a new schedule. I’m giving myself a break, though. It’s my first time! By the time I got home I had a little over an hour before I had to go pick up Katelyn again. So Maddy and I had lunch, I checked e-mail, I wondered aimlessly around the house wondering what I could be doing and then left to pick up Katelyn. Maddy had no nap yesterday because there was no time. She did fall asleep on the way to the school and as I got there early, I let her sleep for a bit. I”m going to have to figure out what to do with the time while Katelyn is at school. I may run errands and then get to her school early and let Maddy sleep in the car while I read or something. We’ll see.
Katelyn gave me a quick wave and hug at drop off yesterday. She was a little shy at first but quickly lost that. I did shed a few tears in the car on the way home but no as many as I thought.
My “mommy moment” of the day was stupidly sending Katelyn with a pb & j for her snack/ lunch to a school that I already knew was a no nut school. In making her lunch it didn’t dawn on me that (duh!) peaNUT butter has, well,… NUTS in it!! While getting in the car I asked Katelyn if she ate all her lunch and she said ” I didn’t eat my sandwich because my teacher said we should save it for later because this is a ‘ NO NUT SCHOOL’”. And she totally had the “duh, Mom” look on her face. And apparently I sent way too much other stuff because they told her she could only pick three things to eat. So, today, no nuts and only three lunch/snack items in her lunch box today. Call me a quick learner.
She comes home with a folder every day with her work and any notes/newsletters to me in them. Her paper from yesterday is already hanging up. She practiced writing her name, the word ‘red’ and had to draw a picture of something red. Today, she has to wear something red to school. Every Thursday is “Theme Day” where they wear the color of the week. It’s so cute.
I know I’m going to have fun.
The Little Yellow School House
Thursday, September 10th, 2009
We went to Katelyn’s Pre-K open house today. Nana and Papa went with us so they could see it too.I was so excited to see what her school looked like. Nana and Papa, I think, were just ask excited. Her going to Pre-K is turning in to a family event! The Faulkner School was established in 1897(!) by the Faulkner family. It’s run by a foundation now(I’m guessing the Faulkner foundation or something similar) so parents make a monthly donation in lieu of regular tuition. The school only teaches Pre-k and Kindergarten. If everything works out we’ll probably send Katelyn to Kindergarten there as well. She’ll end up doing two years of Kindergarten. The first year will be like an advanced Pre-K and the second year would be Kindergarten curriculum. It’s a quaint and charming 112 year old building. I fell in love with it. We got to meet Katelyn’s other teacher Miss Debbie, an older woman they call “Nana” who, I”m guessing, is just a helper and we saw Miss Tilley(My mother in law’s friend, Roberta) as well.Katelyn is excited she’ll get to take a back pack and a lunch box to school on the days that she goes. She’ll be there from 11:30 to 2:00. It’s only 2.5 hours but they do structured activities during that time.
The front of the school
The founders.
They have several neat, old photos and plaques hanging in the school dedicated to the Faulkner family.
The classroom where they do their ‘work’ .Where learn to write letters, art projects etc. They also have lunch at their desks. The woman on the right is Roberta/Miss Tilley.
Katelyn was ready to get started!
The main play area. They have half an hour of free play time where they can play with blocks, puzzles etc. They also do their morning circle time in here. Madelyn had a blast playing with the toys on the floor. We actually found that she had taken one of the toys as we were getting in to the car! She was very upset to have to give it back. You can see in the top left of this picture that there is a piano in the corner. That piano is somewhere around 100 years old too! It’s broken but a really neat piece of the past.
There are a couple of other rooms I didn’t take pictures of like, the bathroom(ha!), the computer room and reading room. (These rooms are used mainly for the Kindergarten class but the Pre-K class gets to use the computer room every now and then) To be honest I felt kind of self conscious taking all these pictures and I couldn’t find the other two rooms! I got turned around and was too embarrassed to ask where those rooms were. And this place isn’t even that big!
So, this place definitely gives a new meaning to the term “old school”!
