Top 10 things we love about preschool…so far

10. New clothes! Everyone knows that one of the best things about going back to school is that you get a bunch of new clothes!

9. Less TV time. She’s actually doing activities that stimulate her mind. She loves each and every activity they do and tells Joe and me all about them at night. She even goes into detail about how she executed her art project that day…Thursday they ripped paper…very exciting stuff.

8. I know that at least 3 days a week she’ll be spending a solid hour outside getting fresh air and sunlight. And now that the weather is actually enjoyable, this makes going outside even better.

7. Ella has learned to write her name and how to use scissors. Have I mentioned that our 3 year old daughter is a genius? How many 3 year olds can already write their own name? And scissors…with webbed fingers…very impressive!

6. She’s much more physical and not being carried around as much. She walks the entire time she’s at preschool, so now she walks more when we’re out and about.

5. Ella is making friends. She will even talk about her new friends at school and tell us their names.

4. She is excited to go to church! Not that she’s ever been afraid of church, but to Ella church meant a lot of people she doesn’t know coming up and talking to her. Now church means fun fun fun!

3. She already comprehends more. Maybe this is all in my head, but I feel like suddenly she started understanding that one thing leads to another. For example, if you finish all of your dinner then you get dessert. Or that in order to read a book, you have to first get in your jammies, then brush your teeth.

2. Last night we went to some friends house for dinner. Before she started preschool Ella would have been upset at the thought of going to someones house for dinner. Last night we told Ella that we were going to Molly’s house and she was so excited and talked about it for the rest of the day. When we arrived she didn’t hide her face or ask to go home. Also, we’re having company over for dinner tonight and when we told Ella she started telling me all about what we were having for dinner with our friends.

1. Since Ella has started seeing other kids eating, she has started eating twice as much food in half the time. Ella has always been a slow eater, and sometimes it gets really annoying to have her sit for 45 minutes barely taking bite after bite. Now that she sees other kids shoveling food down, she has started to model their behavior…and we love it!

Cons:

1. Ella has always been a talker…and now that she has many more exciting things to talk about, she pretty much talks non-stop. I find that I spend much more time giving one-word responses like, “Ok.” or “Really?” or even, “Wow!”

While I realize that a lot of these things might just be happening because Ella's 3, I have to give some credit to preschool because in the last week we have already noticed a big difference in our girl.