Thursday, May 26, 2011

Her first "Graduation"






Actually, we missed her "graduation" as it was our ultimately busy day. Family baptism, golf event, Norwex party, graduation, baseball game. The fact that they called her ceremony a promotion one, because they were moving to the 3 day a week classes, not onto Kindergarten next year, kind of was lost on me. Hopefully next year it won't conflict with so many things. She had a spring concert less than a month ago, so by making that, I felt as though we were really not missing much. They took these pictures of the kids in a graduation cap a few days ago, and passed them out at the ceremony, so we got ours today. At her spring conference, I got pictures from the beginning of the year, and so I figure it was time for me to reflect on her past school year.


I have always thought that 3-4 year old preschool isn't exactly necessary. I like it because it gives me a break. This was the first year where it was actually true because when Trevor started his preschool, I had Gwen 4 weeks into the program. So not a whole lot of alone time for me. Regardless, there has been a tremendous amount of growth out of this little girl over the past year. She had a very small class size - only 10 other kids in class with her, her teacher and one helper adult. Even before class started, we filled out a questionnaire explaining what we hoped our kids would get out of the school year. I knew that she needed to work on socializing or "sharing" and her small motor skills, like cutting and writing her name. In both of these areas, I believe because of the small class size, she has made huge strides. We both can read her own writing of her name, she is getting very accurate with her cutting, and when she has playdates, she does take some possessiveness of her toys, but really does a good job of wanting and playing with her playmate instead of hoarding her toys.


I have a lot of hope that next year, possibly with an even smaller class size, she will get most of her letters down and get her cutting skills honed. I'm not sure how much I will have or want to use the childcare, but we are going to already get a few more days before Trevor is done with school. She can do some of the VBS camps with her friends, but I'm not planning on sending her for an entire week for something that lasts 5 hours for a week straight.


We have hit a big fear of bugs lately. Not only do bees break out the horrific screams, which I really would be ok with, if that was the only thing. But even gnats and small, harmless flying bugs are bringing about the screams. I am trying to get her to take ownership and know that she can get rid of these bugs by using a cloth and killing them. If it is inside, she is usually pretty ok with doing it, but not outdoors. I'm also going to try bug spray. I have been bringing a bottle of it to baseball games, being prepared for whenever the mosquitoes come out. Haven't had to use it yet, but I think we will shortly. Anyway, it might be a mental thing for Gwen to think that if she has the bug spray on, bugs won't bite her, or hopefully land on her. I'll have to try it out and see how that one goes. Until then, we are just trying to get organized for the summer.


However; technically, Gwen's summer vacation has started! Bring on the hot weather!

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