Elisabeth's First Day of Preschool

Since the day Hank finished up at our local Nature Preschool we've been itching to go back. Hank had such a fantastic year and this preschool is everything that I think preschool should be, with the emphasis being on playing and learning outdoors and not worrying about letters and numbers and all the various "schoolish" tasks that older children are capable of mastering quickly when they're a bit older (and I won't even get into how Hank just sort of absorbed it all even though it was never officially "taught" at this same preschool by just seeing and hearing it around him).

Well, now it's Elisabeth's turn to harvest a garden, make salsa, search for animal tracks in the snow, catch butterflies and all the other fun and exciting things her brother did three short years ago and yesterday was her first day.

I don't know if Elisabeth was really nervous; she barely seemed fazed by the events of the day, but she does look a touch nervous in this first picture, no?





And, naturally, Madeleine insisted on getting in on the picture taking as well.



Once we got there, Madeleine and Hank shifted into hyper-gear and insisted on helping Elisabeth do everything. This resulted in no small amount of objection from the small, yet independent, Elisabeth Jane, and finally Joe and I were forced to intervene and tell the big kids to back off. Notice, though, how in both of the following pictures, the first of Elisabeth walking up to the front door through the front play space and the second of her hanging her backpack up in her newly found cubby, Elisabeth's "helpers" are never far off.





How did Elisabeth handle the big day? Well, she barely had time to bother to say good-bye to anyone and barely turned her head when we all left the classroom. Her teachers gave us a more hearty good-bye than our daughter did. And at pick-up Elisabeth was full of good cheer and stories about her fun morning. Hank asked her if she'd had a super fun time and Elisabeth answered, "No! It was REALLY fun!" So, there you have it.