First Day of School!

Today was finally the day that Ben went back to school.  This kid has been wanting to go back to school since school ended.  He would ask all the time, "when is summer vacation going to end?"  Weird kid, right.  Of course preschool is practically a big play date with all of his friends, several days a week, so of course he missed it.  Not that he had any shortage of fun play dates with friends over the summer.  It makes me so happy that he loves school so much.  I really think it's due to his preschool's philosophy that it's through play that small children learn.  They are very unrestrictive and allow the children to decide how they spend their free time there, and also let the children shape the curriculum by extending lesson plans when the kids are really interested in a topic, and quickly nixing others that aren't so well received.  I think it's a great way to get kids to love to learn and to love school.  At least it's working for Ben.  He was so excited he woke up extra early and eagerly ate up his breakfast and got ready to go.
Of course I had to take the traditional porch first day of school pose.

 Here he is reunited with his best buddies from last year (although him and Beau spent several days a week together this summer.)

And this is the pose that I took on the first and last day of school last year.  Wow what a difference a year has made.

He walked right into the classroom, hugged his teacher, and waved goodbye.  Last year I had to stay with him through circle time for the first couple of weeks.  He didn't divulge too much information to me about his first day, but did tell me that he . . .

• and his friends played "hot lava" in the sandbox. 
• there are some new kids in his class, but he doesn't know their names yet. 
• they had pretzels, yogurt, strawberries, and blueberries for snack. 
• and he didn't do the art project today because he was "so busy."  

Two of the families from our church started their children at the school, so Ben's two little worlds have officially collided.  He always classified his friends as "church friends" or "school friends."  It's going to be great having so many familiar faces at school this year.  Plus the added bonus is that me and one of the other mom's are going to swap sitting for the babies while we are working at the preschool.  Jackson (7.5 months) and Jasmine (5 months) are going to be fun watching grow throughout the school year.