preschool daze

i still can't believe that gabe will be going to preschool in the fall! after a VERY early saturday alarm, i was pleased to get a priority number for our 1st choice preschool. i was even more surprised to discover that at 5:30 a.m., i was already #11 (out of 16 morning class spots)!


so, come september gabe will be attending brentwood nursery school twice a week. i was referred there by my cousin after her 2 children attended, and also my colleague's daughter went there. because brentwood is a play-based preschool, i'm sure that gabe will adapt well to it. they do have some stuctured activity time, but the curriculum is driven by what the kids want to learn about, and are given the time and space to follow their own interests. when we went to the open house in january, the topic was giraffes - since the kids were interested in height.


what is parent participation? as part of our enrollment at brentwood, we are assigned a "volunteer" job for the year (i.e., registrar, class rep, supply buyer, etc.); some of the positions form the executive committee who oversee the preschool and meet once a month. the preschool also has mandatory parent meetings once a month which chris or i will have to attend. we will also have classroom days where one of us (or anyone in gabe's immediate family) will be the classroom helper and provide snacks for that day. lastly, there is mandatory fundraising for the school.

i'm looking forward to being the classroom helper (it'll happen every couple months) and see who gabe is friends with, how he interacts with his friends, and what they're all learning about. i'm also comforted by this because it'll help me adjust to gabe being in someone else's care (even though it's only for 2 hours). he's never been left with anyone asides from my parents!

but before he can even attend preschool in september, he needs to be potty-trained! so, our new challenge is to get gabe on the toilet and learn how to do his business all on his own!