School days

I've been meaning to do an update about Ellie's school, but I just haven't gotten around to it. Thank you, Azure, for reminding me!

Ellie LOVES her school! We couldn't be happier with it. I was very apprehensive about sending her because we found out about its availability pretty much at the same time she started, so I hadn't prepared her or myself for the change in routine. However, as I wrote in the first post about it, I had an great impression from the start and I'm thrilled to say that impression has held. The school is excellently run. The teachers are kind and compassionate. The order of the classroom is amazing. The theme for this session is "family", and their group talk time discussions and craft projects all center on the theme. Their classroom crafts are displayed until the end of the session, and then the teachers gather them into binders which get sent home after the school year. They also work on phonics, colors, counting, shapes...(actually, all stuff Ellie knows, but she does have a teacher mama). They have a lovely routine (which is fabulous for Ellie because she really likes knowing what to expect) which allows for a lot of freedom of choice for the children (again fabulous for Miss Strong-Willed, Independent Wonder). Ellie really likes her teachers, especially Miss Marie, the head teacher in her class. Ellie paints a picture every day, and we have quite an extensive collection of her artwork already. Initially I had hoped to display her artwork as she created it, but since we have a daily painting, I may just have to take photos of each and display them in weekly or even monthly units. She is very matter-of-fact about her art. How so? On the first day, when she completed her painting, Sarah (one of the assistants) was taking it off the easel and asked Ellie to tell her what she painted. Ellie looked at her long and hard, took a deep breath and said, "Blue. Green. Red."
Well, obviously.

The school is concerned with legal issues of parents taking clear photos with other children in them and circulating such photos, so I haven't been able to capture school days as I would like to. I did get this one shot of her classroom through the window when I picked her up a few weeks ago, just so we could share the basic layout of the class (it's so nice they have so much space and light!), and of course, there's a shot of the super-happy critter at the end of her busy morning being dismissed by her favorite teacher, Marie.




School is only 2.5 hours three times a week, but we're so happy she enjoys it so much!