First Day of "School"
Monday, November 10, 2008

Well, the prescho0l co-op thing went really well today. Scout had a great time exploring her surroundings and interacting with the other children. I love that it is more than just a play group - that there is story time, songs, snacks, and activities. Not that I think that kids can't learn a ton from simply having unstructured play time with each other. Obviously, playing is the backbone learning. But I think that sometimes kids also thrive on a little bit of structure too. I could see the excitement and pure joy in Scout's eyes when we all got in a circle to sing songs together. We sang some songs that she is already very familiar with ("If You're Happy and You Know It"..."Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes"..etc) so I think it made her feel good that she already knew some of the lyrics and hand motions. The person in charge of bringing the activity this week brought some plastic jars filled with colored water and oil and the kids had fun shaking those around and looking at how the liquid swirled. There was also a big plastic butter tub with a hole in the lid that the kids could pass around. They had a blast sticking their hands in and pulling out colorful fluffy little pom-pom balls. They tossed them up in the air, collected them and put them in different containers, and shoved them back into the butter container. The kids were also able to color with crayons and play with all the toys that each parent brought and dumped in the middle of the floor.

The class is held in a Sunday school classroom of a large church, so the tables and chairs are just the right size for the kids. This is something kind of insignificant, but I noticed as Scout helped herself at the snack table, I couldn't help but see that she looked so pleased to be spooning her own apples and raisins onto her plate. She was looking around at the other toddlers who were doing the same thing and I was imagining that she was probably thinking to herself, "This is a buffet just for us...and we're allowed to touch the spoons and cups and shovel crackers by the fistful onto our plates if we want to!" Okay, maybe I'm reading a little too much into that moment. But I guess I'm just trying to say that I think the way the class was set up fosters her desire for independence, and I like that. And in the same breath, I can say that it also fosters her need for dependence because she can come sit on my lap or hide behind me while peeking through my legs at the other children if she's feeling shy.

There were 5 or 6 other children in our class and their birthdays are all within just a few months of each other. While Scout does have a couple friends around her age at our church, she has never gotten to play with so many children her own age at one time and I could tell that she thought it was pretty cool.

My fears of feeling like a reject around the other parents were unfounded. I got along great with everyone there. They all seemed super friendly and easy to talk to. After all, no matter what our differences may be, we all have a common bond: a desire to provide our toddlers with some fun educational playtime!

Labels: firsts, learning, outings, play dates, playing, school, teaching