An Interview About PreSchool...

When Gabriel first started school this past January he was excited, but so scared of the new experience. This was his first day of school (almost a year ago - age 3 1/2):

He looks so scared and unsure in this picture. There were several tears shed those first few months, and he would cry almost every morning telling me he didn't want to go to school - he wanted to stay home with Mommy. It broke my heart everytime, and I often questioned if I was making the right choice going back to school. But, we made it through those first few months, and now he can't wait to go to school every day!

We are so glad that he enjoys preschool so much now. I often ask him what he likes about school or how his day was, and I thought it would be fun to record some of his responses. When I asked him what he loves about school He responded with:

(Ms. Stevi)

"My teacher, Ms. Stevi, because she is nice and reads to me and wears a pink skirt because I like pink."  (He is talking about the pink poodle skirt she wore for Halloween-he thought that was pretty neat).

"My friends at school because if there was no friends I would just have to play by myself."He loves his classmates (and he can spell ALL of their names-as he will often sit at the dinner table spelling out each of his 14 classmates names).

"I love to pet Henry because he is so cute and soft. Sometimes it's funny when Ms. Stevi holds him because he might get scared and just try to jump off her lap and that is sooooo funny."

"I love to play outside on the playground - it's my favorite because I like to climb and go on the slide and after that we get drinks from the fountain."Whenever I pick up Gabriel from school I ask him what his favorite part of the day was, and he ALWAYS says playing on the playground.

He loves Wednesday Show-and-Tell. This last Show-and-Tell he took the hand-carved Fijian mask we have hanging on our wall. Ms. Stevi quoted Gabriel as saying:

"This is a warrior mask from Fiji. My Daddy is from Fiji. The mask looks scary because it's supposed to scare away all the bad people and scary ghosts."

"My favorite things to do at school are painting, because I like to paint pictures for Mommy. And I like to play at the "Home Center" with Emma because she is ALWAYS my friend. And it's pretty fun to go to our "book nook" because that is where Ms. Stevi teaches us a lot of things!" Ms. Stevi says that Gabriel also really likes to be a helper and follow the rules, and he also likes to make sure everybody else is following the rules too!

Even after school Gabriel likes to come home and work on "homework" especially if Patrick and I are busy working on our own homework. His homework usually consists of tracing letters, coloring pictures, counting and reading site word books. I hope he is always this eager about learning!