Grace's first day of school

Today was Grace's first day at her new school. 

She was pretty excited about it.

We arrived around 8:30 am and signed her in.  

Grace was a little shy but took her teacher's hand and followed her into the toddler area.  I stayed and observed for the first half hour.   An interesting thing about the Montessori school is that they teach the children to "work."  In other words, they have to stay busy.  Grace selected a puzzle from the shelf and sat on the floor and played with it. 

After a while, she wanted to play with something else, so her teacher instructed her to put the puzzle back where she found it and then helped her select a tray from the shelves.  The tray she selected had a tupperware container full of blue playdoh, some golf tees, and a small wooden hammer.  She had fun hammering the golf tees into the playdoh. 

I left shortly afterwards because Grace was having fun.  I picked her up before nap time around 12:00pm.  Her teacher told me that Grace acted like she had been going to the school forever.  She was quiet but stayed busy and was very attentive during her one-on-one sessions.  She chose to play in the sandbox for close to an hour.  During their one-on-one sessions, they learned about colors and dinosaurs.

For snack, they had vanilla wafers and bananas.  Then for lunch they had taco salad and black beans.  Grace ate her corn chips, cheese, tomatoes, and grilled chicken but wouldn't touch the lettuce.  And she only ate 1 black bean. 

The first thing I asked Grace when I saw her was if she had fun at school today.  Her response was "I had fun.  I yike stool!"  (I had fun.  I like school!)  I was excited to hear that and it definitely wore her out.  We only live 1 mile from the school but she conked out in the car before we pulled into the driveway. 

She goes back to school on Thursday.  I hope she continues to enjoy it.