I can not believe that today is the last day of Kayla’s first year of preschool. 9 ½ months ago, I sent her off to school full of fear of her being in someone else’s care. I watched her venture off into a new chapter in her life. One that brought her a new level of independence and gave her a whole world away from me. A world that I have only gotten snippets of out of her. Through the year, she has gotten more talkative about school and her friends, so I have learned some of what her mornings at school are like. But the biggest telling signs are the changes I have seen in her. She went from a 3 year old with, what I believe was a good foundation to an almost 4 year old who knows things that surprise me every day. She knows the Pledge of Allegiance (but will only say it if she can see our flag out front). The one-to-one ratio of counting clicked during her first month of school, so she is a great counter now. Her level of independence has grown immensely. She loves the United States and knows where quite a few of the states go in our USA puzzle (she’ll end up better at geography than I am). She knows she can get help from others like her teachers and her friends at school (note Ethan helps with the USA puzzle). She can count and knows her numbers and letters even better than she did when she started school and she does amazingly well with her sounds and what starts with which letters (this came from her teacher). Most importantly, she learned through the Montessori environment that learning is fun and she has loved every minute of school. Every once in a while she’ll tell me what materials she used (pouring or the cylinders) that day. I have started getting “Miss Danielle says…”. She asks to go every day of the week and is never happy when she doesn’t go on the weekends. So many days, she had to be dragged out of the school building because she wanted to stay. She’ll say she’s excited about the break from school, but I know it will be a rough transition for her. I also see such a pride in her knowing that she goes to school and knowing all that she has and can accomplish there. I also know from a chart of her growth (that they did at school) that she has gained 2 pounds and 2 inches since her first day of school.

When I picked her up she was sad to leave her friend and said she wanted to stay and play ball with them (the full day kids were all outside). It is amazing the changes in her both in her growth physically and mentally. What happened to my little girl?

Just look at how much she's changed...

Her first day of school – September 5, 2007


Her last day of school – June 13, 2008