First Day of School!

Peeper went to her first "phase in" day at her new Montessori school today. It was only an hour and a quarter, but we're calling it officially the First Day. With photos, of course.

She did really well, just expressed a bit of hesitance. While doing her hair, she said, "I don't really think I want to go to school," and "Why can't I learn things at home?" and as we got out of the car, she again brought up, "Why can't I learn things at home? I like reading and learning things." We assured her that she will still read and learn things at home, and she was pretty okay with that.

When it was time to leave for school, I told her, "Okay, time for pictures, and then to the car!" I couldn't find her, and it turned out she'd gone to her bedroom and sat down with Mr. Panda. Since tomorrow is the 27th, I suggested making this her official panda picture, but she was having none of that, and said she wants to take pictures with him again tomorrow. We'll see.

Heading out the door.

On the front porch.

Here's a better view of her sign. At the bottom, it says "When I grow up, I want to be a baker." That's the first time she's said that. Maybe she was watching a video about bakers when I interrupted her to ask.

Of course, I can thank Pinterest for the idea of having her write her name on the sign and include what she wants to be when she grows up.

Pay no attention to the awful garage doors.

Hopping in the car.

All buckled up.

In front of the school.

In front of the school.

In front of the school.

All the kids (just the new 3/4/5 year olds) and parents waited in the lobby for the teachers to come out and get them. When this photo was taken, the teachers were going around finding their kids and we were waiting for Peeper's teacher to spot her.

She found her!

The Head of School asked us to give them about fifteen minutes to get the kids into the rooms, and then we were welcome to go spy on them through in the two-way mirror.

Peeper seemed to be doing great. Today seemed to be about starting to learn the basics of How Montessori Works. They practiced getting out mats, unrolling and rolling, and putting them away, as well as walking around the room and not stepping on mats.

They were introduced to the pink tower and the brown stairs, and Peeper was the one that the teacher used to demonstrate the pink tower. That's what's going on in the photo below. The skeleton-under-a-dome is blocking the view of the tower.

After that, she worked on the pink tower independently while the other little girl did the brown stairs and the boys did transferring work. Then they traded and she did some transferring. She was in a part of the room that we couldn't see at that point, but she told us that she'd poured beads from one jar to another. She also said that they went all over the floor. Oops.

When we lost sight of her, we went back out and chatted with other parents for a while, then drove around to pick her up, the way we'll do it on regular days.

When she got in the car, I asked, "So, how was it?" and she said, "It was awesome!"

After school (at 10:15 am) we went out to brunch, with our MOMS Club friend K and her daughter AK, who is a Kindergartener in a different classroom. She declared it, "Schoolioawesome!"

Peeper thought her chocolate chip pancakes were pretty awesome, too.