First Day of School!

Living in student housing has many perks, one of which is the number of other small children living nearby. It is so nice to live close to so many other families at our stage of life. One of my friends decided to put together a little joy school for five of the kids Emily's age. Since they are so young, we are meeting once a week for 2-1/2 hours. This means that each mom only needs to teach three times for a whole semester of lessons. The group was considerate enough to allow me to teach first so that I can hopefully be done by the time we have this next baby. So, today was our first day of school! Emily is the only girl, smack dab in the middle age-wise of four little boys. One is missing in this picture, but it was still crowded enough to convince me to move to a bigger apartment before having our sixth kid. :)

The lesson was about manners and rules, so after some discussion our first activity was making paper dolls of our class (to show that we're all friends). Everyone chose one and dressed it. I had made four more chains the night before so each kid could draw faces on a set and take it home. Emily drew most of these faces.

Then we sorted helping and fighting pictures into happy and sad columns.

Then we had a snack. They were very well behaved for this part and it was kind of fun to have such a crowded table!

After the food was some free play and then a treasure hunt to practice following directions. The clues were easy for the kids to understand so they did really well in finding the treasure (little packs of Jelly Bellies) without too much help.


Emily carried her "prizes" around with her for a while after the kids left.
I would call her first day of school a success! Not as stressful as I thought it would be for sure. And it will definitely be a good and enjoyable experience for her as she learns to behave in a classroom setting throughout the rest of the year.