Back in Preschool

Today, I got to go to Preschool with my three year old as a volunteer for her Christmas Party. It was a blast! There are 15 children in the class and two teachers on a normal day, and am not quite sure how they do it on a daily basis. God Bless them for it.

For the party, we had four parent volunteers of which I was one. A couple of weeks before the part my wife had signed me up to do a game. At first, I was like, "Oh, Gee Thanks." I did not realize at the time that on top of volunteering for the party, I had to volunteer for a specific function. It really wasn't a big deal, just a bit surprising.

Plus, I cannot complain because she offered to help figure out what to do. But, I was being stubborn and felt that I could come up with a game on my own. Well, that was not meant to be. I procrastinated and by Monday night, had nothing. Fortunately, I had one more day to "come" up with something. So, I asked my wife for help. She could have easily said NO!, but she is not like that. She agree completely.

We came up with "Pin the Ornament on the Tree" (it was mostly her idea.) It was a pretty simple game and no way for a kid to lose. My wife made the tree out of green poster board.  She drew used various shades of green marker to give the tree depth and silver glitter glue for the garland. The star is made out of yellow construction paper.  The ornanments are "stiff" sparkled red felt cut into circles. Shannon wrote each child's name on the ornament in the silver gliter glue, and then glued a silver snowflake on them. For the ornanment "hook," my wife glued sparkly red pipe cleaners on the top. Finally, she stuck magnets to the back of the oranments so that the children could take the home to display them.

To get the ornanments to stick to the paper tree, we attached blue painters tape to the back. This gave us the proper adhesive to stick to the tree without destroying it when we removed it. When it came time to Pin the ornaments we blindfolded the children, spun them around, and guided them to the tree.  Below is a picture of the tree after they were all done. (They may have had a little help to affixing the ornaments so none overlapped.)

I have to say that Ms. Patty and Ms. Bonnie (the teachers) were good sports as they played too. It was excellent and we really enjoyed ourselves. In an earlier post, I talked about how I volunteered in my older daughter's class. Again, I will say that if you have an opportunity to do it, volunteer in your child or grandchild's class. It is time well spent.

A Surprise

About two weeks ago, Molly's first grade teacher sent home a note asking for volunteers to come in and help with a paper mache project on the November 15th and 16th. I decided to use a vacation and volunteer for the 16th. I did not tell Molly that I was going to help, and I asked the teacher and student teacher not to say anyting to her. The plan to surprise her was set and worked perfectly.

Typically, I telecommute on Tuesdays. So, it was no big deal that I was home when she left for school. I arrived at her school at 10 a.m., and the kids were still in an assembly. The secretary told me to wait in the hall outside of Molly's classroom. I did. I could hear all of the children coming down the hall, and I saw the student teacher round the corner first and then right after her came my little girl. She screamed "Daddy!" and ran to give me a big hug. It was great.

Helping Molly and her classmates with that project was a lot of fun. It was also really messy. Even with an apron, I had paper mache glue all over my sleeves. When we were all done, I got a little surprise of my own. I was told I could go in the classroom and sit with Molly for a little bit while she was working on her Thanksgiving story. That was really special.  It was fun to see Molly in her own element.

If you ever have the opportunity to volunteer at your child or grandchild's school, do it if you can. I know it is hard to fit that kind of time into your schedule. Man is it worth it though. It was fulfilling for me, and Molly was super excited. The children love it. One of the little boys I helped kept telling me about how his dad had come in the day before to help. It makes a lasting impression on our children.