Preschool

Daniel had his first day of preschool today.  He is going to Picasso Preschool two days a week, for two hours each day (Tuesday/Thursday, 9:30-11:30).  We went on Monday evening to meet his teacher and he was very shy.  He didn't want to talk to her, didn't want to play with the toys, and basically didn't want to have anything to do with any of it.  So, we started dreading today.  His teacher told us that if he was upset when we dropped him off, to just give him to her and walk away quickly and she would handle it.  That was the plan for this morning.

Before we left, we wanted to take some pictures of our preschool-age-boy.  He wanted nothing to do with taking pictures.  At all.  It was all I could get him to do to even look at the camera, let alone smile.

We then headed for school.  Daniel wanted me to carry him inside, but as soon as we walked in the door, he said he wanted down and wanted to walk to his classroom.  I was pleasantly surprised and quickly put him down.

When we got to his classroom, we said hi to his teacher and Daniel grabbed a toy firetruck and immediately sat down and started playing with it.  Amy and I took that as our cue to leave, so we said a quick goodbye and headed out.  He wasn't crying or anything, but was being very quiet. I turned around as we left and he was looking at me with very sad, puppy-dog eyes, but still not crying, not following us.  We considered it a victory and headed out for a nice breakfast to celebrate.

At 11:30, we went back to the school to pick him up.  As soon as he saw us, he came running with the biggest smile on his face and immediately started telling us about all the things he did.  His teacher said that he was great, didn't cry at all, did very good listening, and was very polite.  Lots of 'please' and 'thank you'.  In fact, he didn't want to leave!  We couldn't be more proud.

Each week, they focus on a letter, number, and color to learn about.  This week was A, 1, and red.  This was what Daniel brought home from school.

Overall, today was a great success and we can't wait for school on Tuesday.