Art

Marisca is getting much much better at drawing all in a hurry. She will now do some pretty decent stick people and pays attention to colouring within the lines, and even produced a decent cross section of a kiwi (fruit, not bird) the other day.

This morning after breakfast she asked to do some painting and produced this modern masterpiece. It started off as a face, turned into a train, added a little planet called Mars where only aliens and spacemen can go, and finished with a lake. It's lovely to watch her imagination in action!

Cheeeeeeeese

Did I mention that Tom is smiley?

Tom's report card

Tom has had his first report card from nursery.  Well, it's called a 'My Learning Picture Summary Sheet' but it looks like a report card to me.

It is interesting to see what we already know being noted and written down by someone else.
"Thomas is a very sociable child"
"Thomas knows all the colours and counts with help"
"Thomas is very stable on his feet and climbs on everything we have to offer in nursery"
"Thomas enjoys learning different words"

They don't really say that he's super smiley or that he loves giggling to himself and calling everyone cheeky.  Or that when we mention Bonbons he immediately tells us he'll play with trains, cars, and Michael.  He's definitely getting on well there.

School

Someone was very excited yesterday:

She was excited about putting on her uniform, she was excited about putting on her new school shoes (polished by her the day before), and she couldn't wait to go to school. We live five minutes walk from the playground, but an hour before we needed to leave she was dancing round the backyard and desperate to go "so I'm not late for my first lesson".

Eventually we convinced her to sit and wait. Here she is reading the 'first day at school' instructions:

When we finally took her to school we were able to take her inside and find her peg (with an astronaut on it), have a look around the classroom (with penguins to count and a book corner) and finally wave goodbye and leave her in the capable hands of her teacher. I have to admit I didn't feel remotely teary - it feels like completely the right time for Marisca to be moving on to school, and I know her teacher well so know she is in safe hands.

Unsurprisingly, Marisca had a brilliant first day at school and bounced in and out of the classroom today as well. So far we have found out that:
 - they do some singing at the beginning and end of the day.
 - she sat next to a girl and a boy at lunchtime.
 - she likes playing outside.
 - she read alot of books!

So, two days down, many many more to go. We even have our first homework this weekend, with five 'tricky words' for us to work on with her. Marisca of course took one look at the list and read them all straight away - reading is her favourite thing after all. We will see what the next weeks bring, but I am so glad her first experience has been so positive. What a grown up girl!