Caught Up: Preschool Goings On

Thanks for sitting through all my catching up today. At least you have lots of reading material if you're bored. :^)

It's hard to believe we're halfway through the school year already. It seems like Aiden's last year is going really fast and he'll be registered for kindergarten in no time. Another mom and I were talking (her son has been in the same class as Aiden since we started there) and she said, "Can you believe that some of the kids that our boys will go to kindergarten with next year will have never attended any school before??". It's really hard to believe after Aiden's been in preschool for nearly three years. It has really made him who he is. He's socialized, he's had to opportunity to learn basically anything he expresses interest in, and he'll have to ability to get through a school day and pay attention to the teacher with no issues. Not to mention that he's fully reading! He was reading a chapter book at bedtime the other night! I feel like I've done my job as a parent by preparing him for school. A study done in Michigan seems to agree:

-65% of children with two years of preschool had most or all of the language and literacy skills needed to be ready for kindergarten. Only 25% of the children who did not attend preschool had the skills needed.

-67% of the preschool children had the math skills needed, compared to 30% of the ones who did not attend.

-Children who attended preschool were 11 1/2 times more likely to have the emotional, social, and fine motor skills needed than those who don't attend.

Plus, the kids have fun and that's super important too!

Last week in Aiden's class, they got to do welding! Aiden was quite excited since John is taking welding classes right now, so he got to tell daddy that he does welding at school too. It was very nice of one of the dads who is an iron worker to bring in all of his gear and spend so much time with the kids. They got to help weld their names into an I-beam which will be put into a new restaurant in downtown Portland.
Two weeks ago, his class took a field trip to the pet store where we got to play with chinchillas, snakes, chameleons, and a rat. They also got a full tour of the vet clinic. I was quite impressed with the staff there and how much time they spent teaching the kids about everything that goes on. Huge thanks to Petsmart on 185th! Back in class, the kids have created a pet store complete with vet clinic and grooming salon. It's really cute.

I'm having fun being the parent rep for Nathan's class. I'm also a table host for the school's annual auction on February 26th. There are still tickets available if anyone in our area would like to attend. Tickets are $55 a piece and you get a full yummy dinner catered at the Oregon Zoo. There is a silent auction at the beginning of the evening and then during dinner, it moves on to a live auction. There's some great things to bid on, including vacations in Sun River, pilates lessons, kid activity baskets put together by each class, tickets to Blazer games and operas, and so much more. Plus you could sit with John and I at our Gene Kelly themed table! This year's auction theme is Lights, Camera, Action!, so it's all Hollywood themed tables. Email or call me if you're interested in attending. It's a really fun evening.

With it being Aiden's last year, it felt strange to register Nathan for next year but not Aiden. Nathan is now registered for the class that Aiden is in now. I won't be able to parent help next year due to the public school schedule, which will be a new thing for me since I've always been involved in the classroom. Next school year will definitely feel different for us, but we're very excited for Aiden to have new opportunities in kindergarten. We just really hope he's not bored!