First Week of Preschool

We've had a slew of firsts around here lately!

Eli started "mommy preschool" last week.

This is how he felt about it:

I thought he would be beaming and so excited to have some one-on-one time with his favorite mommy.   But no, he was in tears and wanted no part of preschool.  To Eli's credit, he doesn't remember Alison doing preschool at home and school in his little head is the building where Alison is.

And we were not there.  

We did not have a lunchbox or backpack and the bus had already left.

I thought a special snack might help lighten the mood.

He ate the snack with a frown on his face and wouldn't touch the letter 'A' I asked him to color.

Stinker.

I sang him the letter 'A' song and explained to him that we were going to have lots of fun doing crafts and playing games.  I think the song won him over and he started to warm up to this whole learning thing :) 

I knew teaching Eli would be far different from teaching Alison and was slightly nervous about jumping in.  I feel terrible admitting it, but I've never let Eliot cut or glue and he's only colored a handful of times.  Going into this week, I had no idea if he even knew how to hold scissors or open a glue stick. 

Shocked?

The littlest little stinker may have had something to do with that.

I was so surprised at how well he did and I am so immensely thankful for the island in our kitchen.  Now he can sit up high where Colin can't eat any crayons or drink the glue and can create whatever he wants.

So what does Colin do while we work?

He just runs around the house naked like a good little toddler.

By Tuesday, Eliot was much happier about school and by Thursday he was asking when we were going to start for the day. 

For this year, I'm focusing on a letter of the week and working activities around that theme.  This week I learned that trains may be my best tool in teaching him. 

Everything we did turned into a train track...alligator teeth, apples and ants.

Thankfully Aunt Beth was brilliant and bought him a Thomas alphabet train puzzle and we used that sucker every day.

So proud of the tunnel he built for Thomas

I loved our first week.  I loved our time together and I loved watching him learn. 

Cherry on top of the week:

the kids working on our 'fruit of the spirit' apples together.