Christian starts Joy School!

I feel like we have had so many great things happen lately. And here's another!

Christian is starting Joy School this year! It started on Wednesday and was another good first day of school experience for our family!

I know that my blog entries are very long, but I started this blog mainly as a journal for our family, so I want to be pretty detailed about the important events in our family. This will probably be another longer one because it was a big day for Christian and I.

The first day of Joy School was at our house and C was pretty excited about that. During the past couple of weeks talked about it and played some of the great Joy School cds to get ready.

In the morning, Christian picked out his first day of school outfit, an outfit he would choose almost every day if he could, his yellow Thomas shirt!

He brought his backpack downstairs in the morning and was excited to see evidence of Joy School in our house when he came downstairs. I had some books out, homemade play dough, some art supplies, the weather charts etc. He really was pumped.

After we had breakfast and got Victoria off to the bus stop for her second day of school, we came home and had a Christian photo shoot! He's so funny. He moves so much, he is tricky to catch, but I think we got some great first day pics! Here are a few!

Christian in his awesome new red backpack! He is standing in front of our new weather chart! He thought it was pretty cool. Check out the great faces!

Here he is putting his show and tell object into his backpack. He chose a really cool Triceratops to share with his friends!

Here he is in his freshly covered rug remnant mat. He picked out the fabric last year. It is navy flannel with red and white cars and trucks. Very cute. Danny sewed the cover for Christian a few days ago and it looks great! I love these pics because Christian shows his true personality so well. Laughing and silly. He wanted to take one pic lying down also. By the way, this is pretty close to how Christian uses his mat during school also. (at least on the 1st day at his own house). He tries to stay on it, but it is tricky still. We'll keep working on that!

After our photo shoot, Christian helped me get the house ready for his friends. He helped me clean the breakfast crumbs of the table and chairs, set out the play dough and utensils, vacuum(OK, he really just sat on the sofa saying turn it off during that part- he's not afraid, but he hates the noise because I can't hear him), get the music ready, etc. He really was a great little helper.

He kept looking out the window and asking when his friends were coming. It was totally cute.

They finally came! Christian was ecstatic!

Here are some pics of Christian, Sam, and Laurie. Aren't they just adorable! They were all happy and ready to start a new adventure.

I didn't really have lots of time to take pics when I was teaching, but I did take a couple while they had free play time(with play dough- there were other options, of course, making it "free play", but they all stuck with the play dough).

The lesson was a getting acquainted lesson. We learned the rules of Joy school, met Joy Boy (a blue hippo this year), learned about the joy school house, calendar, and weather. We had snack time, rest time, story time, singing time, etc. I think the song they liked best was "Pokey Bear" because it was so funny! We played a "favorites" game that helped the kids to learn about each other's favorites and helped the kids find things in common with each other and with the teacher(this time me). If they remembered the others' favorites they got 1 M&M. It was Christian's favorite part of the lesson. We also did a neat craft with crayon shavings on paper. They sprinkled them on and I melted them with an iron. They turned out to be really neat. Each one was different.

Here is Christian with his creation later in the day when he was ready to play in the pool.

We ended class and headed outside for a few minutes of outdoor playtime until the moms came.

It was fun. The kids were really well behaved! Especially for the first day. They were very cute. Christian and Sam really have fun together and Laurie did really well too. I really liked having Laurie because it was so brand new and exciting to her. Christian and Sam knew a lot about what to expect from having been at school with Victoria and Josh, but they still seemed very pleased that now it was for them. They are big kids now! Christian listened and obeyed pretty well which was great because sometimes it is tricky sharing your house, mom and toys. It was really hard for him to sit when it was time to listen though. He prefers rolling around on the floor which won't work. I told him, "Please sit on your mat" about 10 times, but I predicted that that would be difficult. One of the 6 rules that we learned was "We sit up quietly in our seats when it's time to listen." So, I am hoping that over the next few months that rule can be reinforced again and again and that soon he'll get it. Especially at the other houses. I want him to be respectful of the rules and other teachers. Anyway, it went very well over all. It helped restore some confidence in myself that I can do a good job teaching kids. I enjoyed it and I know that Christian enjoyed it. I heard him tell his Dad, sister, and grandma all about it.

We are thankful for another successful first!