Wish You Could've Seen Them Smile!!

Thank you for letting me teach the first day of JoySchool! True, I was still brushing my teeth when Gina called : ) and I was frazzled at the end, but for a completely different reason than JoySchool. Maybe I'll tell you about that later.

I wish I had taken video of the kids during the opening song, to show you their mega-watt smiles! But I am certain they will smile the same for you all when you teach... These were not the tentative, shy smiles of the young toddlers of last semester but the eager, enthusiastic smiles of confident children. It was so touching to see their eyes light up with recognition at the routine and songs. What a difference a few months makes - their attention spans are longer and they are so participative. They are growing up so fast.

It has been a while since they've all been together so we took some time to talk about their favorite things. While last semester they may have copied what the person before them said, they all answered differently today. They still have the same favorite colors - Mark likes green, Ches loves blue, Ethan exclaimed that yellow was his favorite and Elise likes orange. I think it says so much about their unique personalities!

It was funny to hear their responses for what their favorite food was. Mark hemmed and hawed trying to decide and finally said he just likes to eat. Me too! Ok, we all know that Tiana is very health conscious and doesn't feed her kids high-fructose corn syrup, so I don't feel bad writing that Ches insisted that his favorite food was "Cookies, Cookies!" Ethan immediately shared that he loved hotdogs and pizza. Elise said her favorite is oranges and apples. That's news to me! I mean we eat it often, but she for sure has a sweet tooth and I expected candy or Popsicles.

The kids were thrilled to be together today, but we did have some disagreements. But as always, Ethan was quick to say sorry and forgive! I was impressed. Once Elise threw something (I hope not with intention to hurt, but I didn't see.) and it hit Ethan. He burst into tears and I made Elise apologize. She waited till the last second and I was going to put her in time out because she didn't respond to me right away. But Ethan still crying protested, "No, she said sorry!"

I was also impressed that Mark did not participate in any tugging or hitting. When I had to scold the group they would tell me that he wasn't a part of it. Later, we discussed that there is something stinky in my house. I totally agree!! I don't know what that smell is (it smells a little like gas, but maintenance said there wasn't a problem.) So I let him smell the minty play dough and he liked that. He and Elise were so good at cutting out shapes out of play dough.

Ches was a model student as always. I can always count on him to follow directions quickly, and to be the most peaceful. He also tries to reinforce my instructions with the others. I really appreciate that! He really got into the songs about the rules and "Where is Thumbkin?" It was so fun to see him and Ethan kicking the ball around together.

Elise was just so thrilled to see her friends and loved playing the leader to show the boys where to go. Earlier in the morning, Elise screamed for joy when Tiana called because she heard that Ches was coming over for JoySchool. She also really gets into the art projects and that is always fun to see.

To celebrate the first day of school we made cookies together, we also reviewed the rules, sang some songs, made art out of shaved crayons because according to the manual crayons have to follow rules too - when they get hot they have to melt. We read "Pigs Ahoy!" by David McPhail and talked about how the piggies weren't following any of the JoySchool rules. Then we went outside and played with sidewalk chalk and kicked around a ball.

We are so happy school is back in session! We had a true blast today despite me misplacing the JoySchool box cover... Where it is is and how I managed that is a mystery.