Joe Goes to Pre-K

Fans.  Today was Joe's official first day in the pre-K room!  He's spent a few full days in there over the course of the summer, but was then still on the pre-B roster.  Not so anymore.  We are starin' down the barrel at kindergarten with our very own pre-kindergartner.  Can you believe it?  Neither can we.  Not hardly.

Things roll in the pre-K room pretty much the way they did in the pre-school rooms, in that units are still two weeks long with curriculum unified by those two-week themes, but there is more emphasis on the beginnings of reading and writing.  For example, in the pre-B room, Joe used to write his name each day by the door on a sheet.  Initially, his name was spelled out in dots.  From there he progressed to free-handing it and from there, to still free-handing it, but with an uppercase J and a lowercase o and e.  Now, he signs in on a dry erase board, and with his first and last name, as we read after the fact in our welcome packet.  Today, he signed only Joe.  But Fans, here was the bit that was almost to precious to bear: the first thing Joe did was draw a line and it wasn't the cross bar for the J to follow.  No, it was the blank line on which he wrote his name.

Incidentally, today was also Cousin Nick's first day of high school, and he came up on our way to school.  Clara remains in her "twos" room until she turns three, but today was the first day of her room's unit on families.  In anticipation, we reviewed our family members as we drove from home to school, including, of course, Cousin Nick.  Joe informed us that he "has a Nick."  His Cousin Nick "has two names.  Cousin and Nick."  Joe just calls him Nick.    Special to Two Names Cousin Nick: we were thinking of you today, and hope you had a great first day of what will be a great freshman year.