Preschool

Willa started preschool last week. I'm doing a co-op again, there are six little girls total in the group. Originally, I got invited to join a co-op of all boys. I was totally in and thought it would be fun for Willa to have some little boy friends. I also liked the fact that all the boys had Fall birthdays like Willa, so they would enter Kindergarten the same year and they were the older side of three years old starting out. Then, one of the moms dropped out of that group to run her own private preschool and a bunch of other moms dropped out to enroll their boys in the preschool - including my friend who originally invited me to join. I was starting to get a little nervous that this whole thing would fall apart. I was worried that when that happened all the regular preschool slots would be filled and we would be high and dry when school started.

Then, another mom called and invited me to join the princess preschool (my name for it - six girls after all). It just felt good right away. The Holy Spirit? My one concern is that this group of girls were all the younger side of three - most of them with summer birthdays - but they are still set to enter kindergarten the same year. At the same time, the moms were a lot more organized and my friend who invited me is a former teacher and has a Masters in blah blah Childhood Education Curriculum something. I also realized that if I were to enroll Willa in a regular preschool (not a co-op) she would be placed with kids all entering Kindergarten in two years - no matter when they turned three. So, I joined and we started! I should add, that after I decided to join the new group, I found out from my first friend that the old group was thinking of kicking me out when my friend dropped out (I didn't know any of the other moms besides my one friend). Rude :)! As soon as I heard that, I was even more glad and grateful that I went with that feeling to join the second group. They didn't actually kick me out, but they sent me a late text after they had all met together asking if I was still interested. So, they aren't that bad, but I'm sooo happy to be where I am.

Okay, so Willa was kind of scared about preschool this summer and would whine and cry when I mentioned it. So, I stopped mentioning it until the night before. Then, I calmly told her and walked her through all the steps. She didn't get upset, so I wonder if the other stuff was all dramatics. In the morning, she was excited to get ready and she was sitting at the table with her backpack on ready to go thirty minutes early. Seeing her like that, I realized that she really needs this. She was looking forward to it and she just needs to get out and have something like this for her. We meet Tuesday/Thursday for two hours and we each take a week. So every six weeks, I will host at my house. We have a set circle time schedule and a pretty set schedule to divide up the two hours. We also made assignments for each week and day: letter, number, color, shape, etc. Hopefully the kids will have enough consistency and changing homes won't throw them too much. I was super impressed by the first week. My friend the ex-teacher is teaching this week, so I'm going to record one of the days just to help me in planning. I feel a little out of it since Willa is my oldest and I haven't really had the preschool experience before (the month in Texas before we moved doesn't count). I'm really glad this co-op is working out. Part of me really would love the freedom to just drop her off and not have to worry about teaching, but the other part of me would really love to save that money or to use it for an extra activity (right now, swim lessons). Next year, we'll do something more official, but for now this is good.

In the morning, they took a photo of each girl holding this sign "First Day of Preschool 2014", but Willa wouldn't pose! She finally did at the end when I was there.