Monday, September 27, 2010

Preschool & Gymnastics Update

The girls are really enjoying school, which is a bit of a relief to me. The question had been raised several times as to whether or not they would have an easy transition seeing as they have never been in any type of day care situation. This has been a breeze. Seriously, my kids are really great with most everything but sleeping.

As most of you know, Anna was in preschool for a few months at the end of the school year last year because she qualifies for services. I would always ask her questions about what she did at school or who she played with. She would never give me an answer and most of the time would just ask the question back. So if I asked, "What is that little boy's name? I saw him wave to you." Anna would reply with, "What is his name?"

So far the girls have been talkative about school activities. If I ask questions, I get somewhat legitimate answers. They tell me how they play with blocks, or in the play kitchen or on the playground. They aren't good with names yet. They each know who their teacher is and they also know the names of their sisters' teachers but they can't tell me the names of the other kids.

They have been pretend playing school at home now. Allie is usually the teacher. Yesterday I watched the exchange between Allie and Anna, who was the student. Allie would ask Anna what she wanted to do and Anna would say, "Let's do circle time now, Teacher." Allie will actually sit and "read" books like she is the teacher. It is quite entertaining for me to watch.

We also have the girls enrolled in gymnastics again. This year, they are in the preschool level class, which means that they are with an instructor. No parents in the gym. They LOVE going to gymnastics, which is important to me. I want them to enjoy activities not feel forced or bribed into doing it.

The daughter of a good friend of mine is also in the girls' gymnastics class. This was all completely unplanned by us too. The class is for 8 students so our kids make up 50% of the class!

We have been looking around for a ballet class for the winter. Most of the places that we have heard good things about only have ballet for older kids so we may hold off on that until next year. We need to do swim lessons this winter and I don't want to overload on activities.

3 comments:

Liz Jimenez said...

So glad they're adjusting well to school! My kids have been doing similarly - seem to enjoy it, though I get minimal answers about what they did, and they don't seem to know other kids' names yet. Except for one little girl my daughter calls "Terrific." Looking at the class list, I have to assume she means the girl named "Rithvik." Heehee.

We're doing swimming on Sunday mornings right now, which I would like to keep until my kids are able to swim without flotation (it may yet be quite a while). For us, we look at it as a safety/skill necessity, and unless they REALLY hate it, we're not considering it an option as far as whether they "want" to or not.

But I'm considering adding gymnastics in the afternoon, which we haven't done in almost a year. And Rebecca has started asking about dance class, so we'll see. Yikes!

Siné said...

I'm not sure where in MA you are located, but Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre offers ballet classes for 3 and up. They are located in Cambridge and have a satellite school in Duxbury.

Janet Dillon Robinson said...

Gymnastics! :) Such brilliance & fun!