Our Little Girl's First Day of School!

Mc and I never wanted to put our kids into preschool.  We had talked about it, and we both felt that it was just glorified (and expensive) daycare.  But a couple of months ago we decided that we should put our daughter in a preschool, for a few reasons:

1) She loves social interaction.  I take the kids to the park at least once a day, and she's always happiest when she makes a friend.  But the friends she makes don't go to the park regularly at all, and she's sad when she doesn't have anyone to play with.  At school she can make friends and know that she'll be seeing them every weekday.

2) She is very ready for learning things at school.  She soaks up information like a sponge, and she's ready to learn a variety of things, and more than I can teach her at the moment.

3) Our son needs one-on-one time with me.  There is a lot I can teach him and that I will have to teach him so he can improve his speech and cognition skills, but I need a quiet space with just him and me so I can teach him, and our daughter doesn't allow for that when she's home.

Mc asked around work to see what are good schools around here, and the Montessori program was highly recommended.  (You can read about their philosophy here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montessori_education ).

We found a Montessori school in our city that had a last-minute opening for her age range (3-6 years old), so we got her in.  It's a small school with about 20 kids + 2 teachers in each of the 5 classrooms, and I like that small, close-knit feel to it.  The school also takes great precautions with the kids' safety, which I was very impressed with.  I'm also happy that the kids in her class are 3-6 years old because although she's almost 4 years old she tends to make friends with girls who are a year or two older than she is, and so she'll have those girls in her classroom.  She won't be held back scholastically or socially because of her age the way she would in a public school.

We have her there only in the afternoons from 12:30-3:00 to test out the school and see how she does for this first year.  If all goes well, we'll have her attend next year as well and we'll get our son in there, too.  The hands-on approach to learning will be essential for our son because that's the way he learns, but our daughter will benefit from it as well.

I didn't post these pictures on Facebook, but I'll do it here.  Here she is on her first day of school (last Wednesday) in front of her classroom:

She's giggly because I'm taking a picture of her.

Ready to go into the classroom and start her day!

Today was her 4th day of school.  Her teachers say she's doing great, and she loves it and today she told me that she made a friend.  I'm so happy for her.