On August 30
th Sophia had her first day of school! She is attending afternoon preschool 3 days a week at "The Academy for Children" in downtown Fargo. It's a WONDERFUL school! I cried dropping her off the first day, so the principal sent me 3 email updates at work letting me know what Sophia was working on, and the staff took many pictures of her throughout the afternoon and then Sophia and I viewed the pictures when I picked her up at 5. Sophia got "a little sad" the first 2 days, but by day 3 she was fine the whole time! They do lots of wonderful things at her school, including music and French lessons and lots of field trips. Her first field trip is in 2 weeks; they are going to the art museum! They also go to the park down the road quite a bit, and the children are growing vegetable "box gardens" around the school grounds. There are so many wonderful things about her school! We all just love it! Sophia is very excited to go back after our long weekend together. :)
First day of school poses outside the front door!
Sophia brings her Dora backpack
Hanging up her backpack on her very own hook!
When we left her she had very comfortably joined the other children in "circle time" to hear a story!
These pictures are from her school orientation the week before she started classes! The new kids each got to have a private orientation with the teacher (Ms Maria) and the classroom.
Sophia's school is a Montessori school, and they have fabulous Montessori-specific learning materials. The school is very experiential; there is no lecturing. Each child does what they call "works" throughout the day on his or her own work mat. It's a
pre-k/Kindergarten combo class and the
kindergartners help the younger children.
Ms Maria helping Sophia learn how to use her work mat! You can just barely see Sophia's
name tag (with her symbol, the red diamond) on her mat. That's how Sophia can "save" her work on her work mat if she needs to do something else, like snack or recess, etc.
Sophia got to meet one of her classmates; who had the next orientation time slot!
Pulling papers out of her own
cubby
The southwest corner of the playground
Sophia circling her choices on her first
book order!
Yay for school!
More swimming lessons, at Concordia College just down the road!
The ballerina swimsuit is too adorable! The wonders of Target!
We had "Greater Moorhead Days" last week, and managed to squeeze in the parade this year! Sophia REALLY enjoyed it! (Especially all the candy... she got as much candy from this parade as she gets at Halloween. Someone IN the parade finally took pity on my bulging purse and camera bag and gave us a shopping bag to put the goodies in... and we FILLED it!).
Sophia sees Bonnie, a Ladies Auxilliary member who I work with!
One hand for a flag and one hand for candy... notice the sticker collection she was starting on her shirt...
Moorhead highschool has awesome cheer and dance squads, and the marching band was HUGE and wonderful!
Picking up candy...
End of the parade!
One of the MOST exciting things (2nd only to starting school): Sophia has started ballet lessons! She's taking a small group ballet class at Gasper's School of Dance.
She loves the mirrors... the music... the props... it's fun! The instructor is definitely also a bit strict and demanding, and I appreciate that :)
How cute are these little girls??!! Sophia's all the way on the right (the littlest one!)
At the "ballet barre" (took this pic in the mirror)... Sophia all the way to the right! Her first class was a little overwhelming, and about half of the class has already had some ballet. The teacher assurred me that Sophia will catch on and we should stick with it and help her practice, so we've been working on first position, plie, passe, and pointing and flexing toes. She catches on really fast; the thing to work on is keeping her still!
This last Saturday we joined our friends Leslie and Leonard (and daughter Aria) at their beautiful, early 1900's home for a little dinner party! In this pic Aria and Sophia were pretending to be dogs.
Leslie and Aria
Ok... so Aria and Sophia are less than a year apart... Aria just has TALL parents and Sophia has SMALL parents! :)
On Sunday we went over to the neighbor's (across the street) for a little pool party and a few beers. Good timing! I think that was our last 80 degree day of the year!
We've been really enjoying the sweet corn... one of Sophia's favorites! Happy fall!
