Preschool Camp

Sam went to school for the very first time this week. It was a one week summer camp..."Under the Sea" camp. He went every day from 9-12 and ate lunch at school. I was unsure how this would all go but Sam did it like an ol' school pro! He hesitated the first day we walked into the classroom for about 1 minute. Then, the "helper" got some trucks out and Sam was sold...Day 2 involved water play outside in the baby pools and he's been bugging his teacher every day this week to go "swim"...needless to say, Sam thinks school is great! It's such a relief to have this first "school" experience under our belts because I've been very anxious about it. The fact that it was such a positive experience is just what I hoped for!

The rides home from school have been a lot fun this week. It's really the only time he says much about school...if I ask him later in the day he's too busy doing other things to talk about it. The things he says are funny so I've picked out the best from each car ride home to share...

Monday: "Mom, we got to play in the sand, and ride bikes, and I didn't throw wood chips." Hmmm...didn't, huh?
Tuesday: "I tried to eat her lunch...I asked!" He really likes to take food off of our plates at meals so we've been trying to teach him that grabbing food from someone's plate is bad manners, and that you have to ask first. Unfortunately, he thinks just because he's asked that then he can take what he wants.
Wednesday: names changed to protect the innocent..."Annie pushed." "Really, did you push?" **grin**look away**, "No, I didn't." Hmmm...really?
Thursday: "I WANT THE DORA CUP!" Seriously, he came home and screamed this 572 times! I guess someone's cup got lost, because Sam doesn't have a Dora cup.
Friday: Again, names changed. "I pushed Joe and he laughed!...Joe pushed me and I laughed!" This was the same boy he was playing with when I picked him up...they were body slamming a globe as his sweet teacher was saying, "Let's be careful with the globe...remember we have to use it to find the oceans the fish live in." They then moved onto throwing legos. Oh goodness...I really hope he didn't behave like this every minute of every day. And of course the boy's mom left me a note in Sam's backpack..."They seem to play so well together, call me if you'd like to get together sometime..." Oh great, I just smiled and said thanks...now what?

On Friday we also received a written "commentary" from Sam's teacher to let us know some things about Sam's week at school. She said his favorite activities were legos and blocks, outside play, coloring, dot painting, digging for shells in the sand, and Splash Day! Socially, she said he enjoyed playing with the other kids and was very comfortable right away. This was such a relief since our only experience leaving Sam somewhere (other than with family) has been at the church nursery when he was younger and it. was. terrible! The funniest part to me was that she said Sam had fun exploring the classroom and the many fun play things...translation...Sam didn't like to sit down and do the class activities for very long. He would rather be getting all the toys out and doing his own thing. Okay, maybe I'm being a little hard on him, but focus and staying on task is not one of Sam strengths. Hey, I warned her...on the information sheet I filled out with our camp registration, I said, "Sam is very curious in new environments."...that was a fair way to put it, huh? I think a teacher would be able to pick up the underlying meaning there. (In his defense, he did come home with all the finished art activities that the others kids took home....and I did see him sit down at the table to do activities when I dropped him off in the mornings...so maybe it wasn't as bad as I envision.)

And we've already seen some evidence that he learned some things at camp, which makes me *smile*. He now has a globe in his room (the one that used to be in daddy's office) and he can point out the oceans on the globe and tell us about things that live in the ocean. And yesterday when we were at the mall and saw a fish tank, Sam pointed out a little crab crawling around at the bottom of the fish tank. He's seen this same tank many, many times before (and it's quite large) and usually just points out the fish. This time he noticed the crab and I've never seen him get so excited to notice something...it was like he'd found a treasure. I think we may need to take a field trip to the aquarium next week.

And I actually have some more pictures up on our photo webpage. (password is our last name)