Preschool!

As Elias wraps up the first of his two years of preschool (I find myself thinking of him as a soon-to-be "2nd year student," as if he's in a two-year graduate program or something), I figured it was about time I wrote a little recap.  In a nutshell, we pretty much love his preschool.  And we lucked out in finding it, I'll admit.  A friend of a friend sent her kid there and loved it and, coincidentally, this girl also attended the same daycare, briefly (I swear I'm not stalking her).  And since it's about a five minute drive up the hill from where we live, it made the short list of preschools to check out beginning around December 2010 (I know, right?!).

In the end, our top three schools consisted of a home-based, basically glorified daycare with a very loosey-goosey approach to "academics."  While play-based schools were the only kind we considered, I do want Elias to be more or less prepared for Kindergarten come next fall.  And their schedule was odd, open from 8:30 to 5 Monday through Thursday but only until noon on Fridays.  Turns out that schedule would still work totally fine for us but at the time I wasn't sure if my business was going to thrive or take a serious nose-dive and leave me searching for a "real job".  I'm happy to say I've been doing pretty well and this is for another post altogether, but I have no desire to do anything differently for a very long time.  So in addition to that school we checked out two "play-based" preschools attached to churches.  That's common around here (I'm not sure how that compares to the country in general or if it's a Bay Area thing).  The churches own the schools but there's no religious instruction.  Of the two, when I walked into the school we eventually chose, it just felt right.  It looked how I kind of expected a preschool to look, the number of kids didn't seem totally overwhelming (35 or so total, but not necessarily all there at the same time), I liked the teachers well enough (as it stands now we love two of the teachers, including the director, but could take or leave the other two), and the outside space is amazing, sitting at the top of the hills between the immediate and extended east bay and offering stunning views to the east that probably go mostly unappreciated by the kids.

The other school we visited, while still "play-based" seemed way more structured.  The school is much bigger which is part of the reason for all that structure, I'm sure, moving the kids in groups of a dozen or so, separated by age, every hour or so, I believe it is, between different classrooms and teachers. Like high school.  I liked that they had a mixture of mixed-age time and time together in smaller groups with kids closer in age (the school Eli goes to is always mixed, all the time, which has its pros and cons).  And I'd heard good things about the teachers and overall academics.  But the director was lacking (that was my general impression of her, echoed by sentiments from parents with kids there), the outdoor space was put to shame by the outside space at the school we went with in the end, and I felt the structure might be too much for Elias at the time, just past his third birthday. Plus, it's farther away and in a neighborhood where he's highly unlikely to continue to see these kids when they enter public school.

My one hesitation with the school he's at now was that the second year might not be, you know, pre-K enough, but I felt we should pick a school that felt right at the time, knowing we could always move him in the second year if we felt the need.  So far I don't feel that need but we are considering a pre-K summer camp right before he enters Kindergarten.  It will depend on how the next few months go.

So one year later I have no regrets.  Elias has learned so much this year, from physical tasks thanks to all that outside time (climbing and general playground confidence, something he seemed to be lacking a bit before, and riding a trike above - this may have happened anyway, but the fact that they have several scooters and trikes outside, plus all that outside time to practice, definitely helped) to more academic tasks like the alphabet and letters, numbers, and the very beginnings of spelling and reading.  His daycare buddy Hazel went to a different school and eventually moved out of the area altogether but he's made a number of good friends at his new school.  He's enthusiastic about the daily projects and activities and is finally starting to show some drawing skills beyond delightfully abstract scribbling. 

Highlights from the first year include a fall field trip to a local pumpkin patch:

 
A Halloween parade (Eli was the big bad wolf - more about holidays, including all Halloween shenanigans, in my next post!):

 A Christmas program:

A special Day with Dad:

Porcupine soccer (and other discoveries in the park). Here he is with good buddy Max:

A very sweet Mother's Day brunch - they made us hats out of big, industrial sized coffee filters and little wooden picture holders and helped prep a delicious breakfast casserole and salad.  The Thursday or Friday before when I dropped Elias off that morning, several kids were busy chopping onions! The highlight for the kids? Ringing the church bell and looking for bugs!

 And finally, wrapping up this spring was the annual Spring Fling fundraiser:

Following right on the heels of all the fundraising (not to mention time-consuming training) I did for Team in Training all winter, I had volunteered to organize the Silent Auction portion of the Spring Fling. So. Much. Work.  But combined with raffle ticket sales and game/food ticket sales, we raised over $7000 for the school's financial aid program and improvements to the classroom and outside area.  So it was well worth it and next year should be a breeze!