Back to School and Art

Tonight was Back to School Night at Joshua's Preschool and we can not be more pleased with this preschool. His teacher has been working there for 10 years and has worked with toddlers for over 20. She is very patient, caring and loving. She expressed to us tonight, that her philosophy is to nurture, nurture, nurture! She explained to the parents that each day is full of learning activities, music, story time, and language skills(which will include teaching some basic Spanish words) and that it all ties into the theme for the month. The stations rotate weekly, but the theme is for the whole school (0-pre-K). The theme for the month of September is Story Teller. Under this theme they will learn about family/friends, nursery rhymes, apples and feelings. There are 10 children in his class with 1 main teacher and 1 assistant teacher. There is a lot of structure in the classroom, but there is also alot of freedom for the children to express themselves. She continued to stress that they do get a bit messy in the class, but that just means that they are learning. She said that by the time they leave her classroom, they will be drinking out of a cup without a lid or a straw without spilling and that they will have learned table manners as well as manners in general, plus much, much more. Although, Dan and I teach this at home on a regular basis, it is nice to know that it is being reinforced and practiced while he is at school. Dan and I are very excited about this new beginning and year for Joshua. The preschool has so much planned for these kids and I know that Joshua will have a blast and be able to flourish and grow in a loving and fun environment. He brought home his first art project from school and it is proudly displayed on the fridge! It was hand prints using chalk. Tonight there was a piece of paper on the table and Joshua started putting his hands flat on it and picking it up and looking, but wasn't quite sure why he didn't see his prints on the paper, it was funny. He kept repeating it over and over! It made me smile because I knew that he was trying to copy the project he had done in class. Below are some pictures from tonight and his art project.