Week Two of School

This week Ari and Alex continued their gradual transition into preschool, going without Mommy for progressively longer periods each day. As expected, Ari was more than happy to go to school on her own, but Alex was a bit more hesitant. He cried for about ten minutes the first day, two minutes the second day, and by the third day he had stopped crying by the time Mommy and Kira got out the classroom door. Mommy has had a chance to spy on their class from an upstairs room with a bird's eye view of the playground, watching Alex and Ari play with their friends, the toy trucks outside and running up and down the big hill next to the playground (Ari's particularly good at getting up the very steep hill!)

Ari and Alex's teacher, Morah Pat, sends out weekly summaries of the class activities, along with pictures. Here are some highlights of this week's activities along with lots of great pictures:

Monday- According to Morah Pat, "the class started the day in both session with Choice Play and Art Time. To our amazement, in both groups, every eye in the room was dry and busily engage in all types of play in 15 minutes. All of the children participated in decorating their communication folders (you can judge their level of enthusiasm by the amount of paint applied!), and most gave the play dough a try. Next, we said our blessings and enjoyed a snack of Cheerios, raisins and water. With the sun shining, the children then got to enjoy the playground. We ended the day with Circle Time and "The Kissing Hand," by Audrey Penn."

Wednesday- On Wednesday, Morah Pat was sick so the kids had their first substitute, who they really loved. They read "Baby Faces," by DK Publishing. They also participated in a hand painting project that resulted in a new valance for the classroom window. Since class ended early, the parents in the class decided to continue the fun at the playground, so Ari and Alex got to spend some extra time with their friends.

Friday- Morah Pat wrote, "I was nothing short of astounded by how quickly everyone settled into class this morning. We all enjoyed a lively session of play dough, puzzles, and lots of toys! After some effort at clean up, we then went on our visit to the classroom of our friends, the "Busy Bees" for a "Shabbat Sing" followed by outdoor play time. We returned inside for Circle Time, and read "My First Shabbat Board Book" by DK Publishing, "Let's Celebrate Shabbat," by Madeline Wikler, and "Soft Shapes: My Shabbat" by David Brooks. Afterwards, we said the blessings and enjoyed our snack of juice and challah. Rabbi Jacob came to visit with the children for a few minutes and sang "Bim Bom" with them. Shortly after his departure, it was time for backpacks and line-up. Another week was done!"

So despite the fact that Alex has some tears for a few moments when Mommy leaves, judging from the teachers' reports and the pictures, he's more than happy once he settles into class. He particularly loves the toy trucks in the class and quickly found the fire truck, tractors and crane. Ari loves doing art work, especially painting and coloring. She also loves the play doh and working on puzzles. It's so much fun to see them developing their own interests and personalities, and becoming so independent.

On days when Ari and Alex aren't in school, we've been busy fitting in other fun activities. On Thursday we met up with Ari and Alex's friend from their old school, Matan, and his mommy at a large park nearby. This is the park with a train, and Alex was especially excited to ride it but unfortunately Mommy forgot that it is after Labor Day and the train only runs on the weekends! We still had a lot of fun, though, climbing, swinging and playing with Matan and his mommy. Mommy was especially happy that there were three swings on this playground so no fighting over who got to use the swing...although Mommy has finally figured out how to get all three kids on our tot lot's two swings by putting Kira and Ari back-to-back!

While Alex and Ari are in school, Mommy has had a chance to spend some one-on-one time with Kira. This week we just ran errands and went for a run in the jogging stroller, but next week Kira's music class starts so we're looking forward to something that is just for Kira!

Speaking of Kira, this week she had some notable milestones. Most importantly, Kira has now mastered eating finger foods! Prior to this week, she was spitting out anything solid- Cheerios, puffs, chunks of veggies or pasta in her baby food. This week she finally got the hang of chewing and we can't stop her! She loves eating everything and ate pasta, peas, corn, bananas and even a bit of ground beef this week in addition to Cheerios and puffs. Mommy is so excited that she's finally making progress on this front. Kira is also starting to stand a little more when helped by Mommy and something to lean on. She was evaluated this week by our local Early Intervention program, which will allow her to get some physical therapy for her gross motor skills (since she still isn't mobile and is not yet pulling herself up to standing position) and even though she's a bit behind in the gross motor skills (30th percentile), she is excelling in other areas like fine motor skills, language and social development.

We capped off our week with an early birthday dinner for Daddy on Friday night, and then this morning while Daddy was coaching soccer, Mommy took all three kids to the Tot Shabbat service at our synagogue (also Ari and Alex's school). Alex was just glad that Mommy wasn't leaving today, and we all had a very nice time singing Shabbat songs, visiting with friends and eating challah and cookies. After services we stopped by Nana and Poppy's house for a quick lunch before it was back home for nap time.

Another week down and lots of fun to look forward to!