Preschool Graduation, Fourth Grade Graduation, and Other Fun Stuff

I held my final preschool graduation.  With Nathan starting kindergarten in the fall, I have decided to close my home preschool.  It's somewhat bittersweet.

Jonah had his fourth grade graduation.  He had the same teacher that both Travis and Eliza had, Ms. Scott.  Also, Annmarie's last day of school in second grade with Mrs. Evans.

 

We had a lot of rain and there was a duck swimming in the lake formed near out mailboxes!

And the elementary school had a decades day, and Annmarie wore the poodle skirt I had made for Eliza in second grade.

And here is Eliza in the same skirt when she is in second grade:

Preschool Heard Museum Field Trip and Graduation

Travis didn't have school on the day my preschool did their Heard Museum field trip, so I brought him along as an extra chaperone.  Brock and Nozomi just adore him.  I had a total of five kids in my class this year, including Nathan, Nozomi and Brock.  The other two, Clark and Nora, are in our ward.  Travis was a big help to me on the field trip.  

Fun and Football

This week in preschool, we learned about Texas.  We also talked about the letter B, so we made bluebonnet painting since bluebonnets are the state flower.

We finally had a varsity football game!  Yay!  They only have four on the schedule but I don't think they'll do makeup games for the ones that have been canceled due to covid.  We were very excited to go to a game and watch the band.  I hope next year we have a real season. 
 

Preschool Pumpkin Patch

We had a pumpkin patch field trip for preschool. We only have two kids in the class besides Nathan because of the pandemic and one of them did not come because his grandparents were in town and they had gone to the same pumpkin patch the day before as a family. So it was just Nathan and his friend Nora (whose mom babysits Nathan in exchange for preschool) and Nora's mom. We had a blast. I also bought a book called "Spookley the Square Pumpkin" and some pumpkin spice fudge, which wasn't my favorite.

 

Spiders, Sticky Notes, Sand, and Snuggles

I was straightening up the front hall and discovered a wolf spider as big as a quarter hiding in my boot. Yikes! I'm glad I found it then and not while I was putting my boot on. I didn't want to smash it only because I hate dealing with the grossness of cleaning up a smashed spider, so I coaxed it into a plastic container and put the lid on and then took it outside far away from the house.  I left it across the street and down a little ways.  Just because it would be my luck that it would follow me back into the house!

I found some sticky notes written on in the fashion that my little reminder notes to myself are written, only in 4-year-old handwriting in a jumble of letters.  It was adorable.

I borrowed a sand table from Eve for preschool but I forgot it was in my car after dropping Annmarie off at gymnastics and when I came to a sudden stop, the sand table flew forward and sand went everywhere!  We got it cleaned up, thanks to Corey bringing the shop vac home from work and Travis being an angel and cleaning it up.  And the kids had a blast playing in the sand table.  I took it back the next day.

And the last picture of Nathan sleeping on Corey is from when Nathan came into our room in the evening after we had gone up to bed.  He comes into our bed almost every night and we are too old and tired to care.  The older kids never got away with it.  But Nathan does.

 

 

End of Preschool

For the first week that school was canceled due to covid-19, I still held my preschool that week. But the next week we were issued the shelter-in-place and even though I probably still could have gotten away with holding it because of such small numbers, it was too much to try and do preschool and have all my kids home doing online school. Plus, I didn't know if the parents of my preschoolers would have supported that. So I stopped doing it and for the next two weeks (last two weeks of March), I sent them online work to do, just all the reading and projects with some fun websites for the games and activities. But I don't think any of them did anything at all, and after talking to one of the parents, decided when online school was extended through the end of the year, to just be done with preschool. But since I had three kids who were "graduating" from preschool, I decided to hand deliver diplomas and a graduation cap that I would have given them at a preschool graduation. I also took them the last of the Scholastic magazines that I had ordered for the year and anything that belonged to them. Usually I give a gift, but it just wasn't happening. I was glad to see them all one last time though!

Preschool

I decided to do preschool this week anyway. I have such a small class and it's in my home that I can keep super clean. Plus, I had my older kids home to help. Today, being St. Patrick's Day, we made these fun rainbow pots of gold. Eliza came up with the craft. I had such good helpers today. And one of my students didn't come because with the extended spring break from school, his family stayed in Arizona another week. It was his birthday this week, so we made a video of singing happy birthday to him and I sent it to his mom. I hope we can resume things normally in another week.

I also continued piano lessons this week with anyone who would come.  I had seven students out of my  thirteen who did not come.  I told them I would still be teaching as long as people would come.  I guess some music teachers are going to virtual lessons, like using Zoom.  I don't want to do that, it doesn't seem like it would work well with beginning students.  But we'll see what happens.

Fun in Preschool

We had a fun Christmas party in preschool.  We made gingerbread men and I also took a picture of each of the kids for a Christmas ornament we made for the parents.  Nathan loves preschool and I love having him!

Parades, Football Games, Birthdays and Field Trips

Caleb's birthday was on the 16th, but I didn't take any pictures. Hmmm. Not sure why I didn't. But on the weekend, I took Travis to a J.J. Pearce football game. It was their only home game that didn't conflict with a Wylie home game, and I thought it would be fun to go to a game at the old Eagle-Mustang stadium. So we went.

Our school had homecoming the following week. We went to the Homecoming Parade to watch Westley and Caleb march.

 Caleb got a set of In-N-Out cookie cutters for his birthday from Nana. He used them right away and made some great In-N-Out sugar cookies.

And Nathan went on his first preschool field trip. We went to the pumpkin patch. It was a really fun day with the preschoolers and Nathan had a great time.

First Friday Night Lights

The first Friday Night Lights of the year was great!  We loved being there with so many of us.  Eliza and Annmarie got to cheer during the first and second quarters of the game, something they get to do with their cheer clinic.  Westley performed with the band.  Travis came along because he always comes to the games.  Benjamin came to experience American football, Texas style.  It was a great night!  Next year Caleb will be in band too, Travis will be with us, so I guess Eliza will be babysitting.  Soon, we'll have to have everyone with us, though! 

April Miscellaneous

 In preschool, we grew butterflies and then released them outside.

 Nathan trying not to fall asleep in his carseat.

 Nathan playing with a mask that Annmarie got at a birthday party.

Sometimes I like to do a fun movie night with the kids and pull the table into the family room to watch a movie while we eat dinner.

Another fun preschool day.  The kids went shopping for items in our pretend store with pretend money as we learned about pennies, nickels and dimes.