Time for School!

What? It's only the beginning of August!!! But yes, in our county, school started August 3rd. (Boo!!! It's 90 degrees outside!) Olivia went to school part-time last year. This year she is full time (8:30-2:45)!!! She is going to the "Georgia Pre-K" which is funded by the State lottery. Guess we need to start buying tickets, huh? We couldn't do any worse than the stock market has the past year!

She loves school!! (Yeah!) She loves her teachers, Miss Kathleen and Miss Tia!! (Yeah!) And she's already making friends. She is a social butterfly, just like her daddy. Thank heavens! Here are a few pictures from the first day:

Waking up all bright eyed and ready to go!

Mark is working afternoon shift, so he was able to go with her the first day!! Ke Xin was tickled about something...

She has to "sign in" each day. They will keep the sign-in sheets to show the difference in their writing abilities from the beginning of the year to the end. I was an over-acheiver-mom and made her write her last name, too. Then I saw everybody else just did first names. Oh well.
Sitting down with her new classmates for the first time. She barely said goodbye to us. Two of her old Child's Play classmates are in her new class and she already has a couple new friends, so I think she'll do just fine. There are 20 kids in her class, and the center has 3 pre-k classes, total.

When Ke Xin and I picked her up at the end of the first day, her teacher and the teacher's aid both remarked (seperately) about Olivia's artistic abilities. They were very impressed! I looked at the newly displayed artwork on the way out and realized that, compared to the other kids' work, she really is ahead of the game for her age. She has a cousin, Sam, who is VERY gifted artistically, so maybe it runs in the family??? They say that art and math use the same areas of the brain (I think), so I'm hoping this is a good sign... Here is a shot of part of her classroom. It really is quite large, and divided into activity areas.

There is an exterior door that leads onto a really nice playground and the interior door opens into a central cafeteria area. The kids eat lunch family style. Olivia loves that, too.

One funny note is that the front-desk lady and I got to talking as we were leaving the first day. She noticed me because I was carrying Ke Xin, who was screaming and kicking, like a sack of potatos. She wanted to stay and play with all the neat things in Olivia's room/playground and was furious that she was not allowed. The woman said I should enroll her at the center and I told her we'd only been home 3 weeks. She was amazed because - she was in China at the exact same time as us with a tour group! She left one day earlier and stayed one day longer, but she flew the exact same routes as us, too. What a small world!!!

The baby room is at the front of the school and Ke Xin loves to look in the windows at them and point, saying "babies! babies!"

The school is actually part of a daycare center about 1 mile from the house. The nice thing is that there is a sidewalk all the way from our front door to the daycare center. The PLAN is that on nice days when it's not too hot or cold - we walk. (I love my sit and stand stroller!) We'll have to see if I ever get my lazy butt out and do that, but at least the opportunity is available.