Our Big Girl Goes to School

September 3 was a big day in the Tasker household - Sydney started school. She is attending a local mothers day out program two mornings a week for three hours. She LOVES it. Honestly, if she was allowed to attend every day I think she would go. There is actually nothing in her backpack, but since she was heading to school she had to, of course, have a backpack!

There are 15 kids in her class and four teachers, all of whom she adores. There's a loose structure to the day and it includes a craft project, singing/dancing session, story time, outdoor playtime, free playtime and they watch a Veggie Tales DVD at the end to distract the kids from the fact other kids are getting picked up before them (this is actually true).

The sun isn't that great for this photo, but Sydney was so excited about all the balloons she asked for a picture to be taken. They had this arch of balloons and then pillars of balloons all the way up the walkway for the first day of school. She has to point out every day that there "are no more balloons" and each day we have to discuss what may have happened to them. They popped, they were thrown out, the teachers took them home, etc, etc. I think one day they were even floating on the ocean - what a great imagination.

We are starting to amass quite the collection of paintings and projects. This last week's theme was Apples. They sang songs about apples, painted apples (we now have three), read stories about apples and even baked apple muffins for their snack - yum!

I am slowly starting to meet the other mother's. They had a welcome morning tea for us last week and I had a chance to talk to a few of the other moms and exchange some contact details. I also joined the Mothers of Preschoolers (MOPS) program, which is held at the school. I knew I'd have more opportunity to meet people once school started, so now I just need to take the initiative to make some playdates and contact.