Aida's First Day at School...

http://www.castlemontessori.com/mckinney/

Today was Aida's first day of School....and she did great. We decided to start her in Castle Montessori in their half day toddler program. This school is beautiful. Aida will go to school from 8:30 to 11:30 everyday. All of the academic instruction takes place in the morning along with the cultural and language enrichment activities. Aida will learn language, math, life skills, Chinese and Spanish along with music composition and technology all during her half day program. Alex and I love everything about this school, their philosophy, how they treat the kids, how clean the building is, the classroom size, and the trained instructors. She will even get music instruction from a Juilliard trained music teacher.

All weekend Alex and I were talking to her about starting school and how fun school was going to be. We talked to her about the kids she would meet and play with and all the fun games she would have in her classroom. This morning she woke up in a great mood. She got dressed and was all smiles. Alex took her to school as planned. He walked her in the classroom and she met her teacher. She immediately had to go potty and learned where the bathroom was -- smart girl. Alex stayed in the back but her teachers Ms. Jessica and Ms. Doris were really nice. Ms. Jessica took her hand and got her engaged right away in the class. Aida played and explored the whole room. She washed her hands 6 times in the hour she was in the room today. (We will definitely be donating some hand soap to her classroom.) After about 30 minutes -- Alex snuck out and met me in the lobby and we watched her through the video screen. I was expecting her to have a meltdown once she noticed that Alex as missing but the teachers were so great to her they gently redirected her to an activity and she played for another 30 minutes. After an hour -- she grabbed her book bag and walked to the door and waited for daddy. By the time he got down there, she had a few tears but was really doing great. You could just tell how proud she was of herself when I saw her again in the lobby. We are so proud of her too. Here are some pictures of our first day...

In our first day of school outfit....

In the car and ready to go :)

Ms. Jessica and Aida working in her classroom. You can see Alex's arm in the left had side of the picture. He was not going far.

The view from the video cameras in the lobby. Aida is at the table with Ms. Jessica working on a project.

Here she was working with another little boy in her class too.

A huge relief to be done with the first day. I am sure we will have ups and downs over the next several weeks but overall she did great. Tomorrow is picture day at the school so stay tuned for more fun pictures.

Congratulations Aida on a great first day at school. We are so proud of you.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

XXOO