Yay for Lilly

It's the end of her four-yr old program at Beach Manor and she's finally in a phonics book which means she can identify both upper and lower case letters.  It's been tough, but we've been working very hard with her. Her teacher was especially working with her because that would give her a perfect record of getting every kid in the class into a phonics book.

Then....one day....Lilly knew all the letterd.  It somehow clicked.  Now she's been coming home daily and telling me what different letters sound like. It's really cool! 

We're still reinforcing her memory of all the letters at home. Yesterday I gave her some word puzzles that Sophia had (I think they were a b'day present from Uncle Mike a few years ago).

She wouldn't leave the room until all the mini puzzles were finished. Each puzzle has a word written on it and a image of the word so she might start to recognize a few words one of these days. You can see the fox in the upper right corner...she called it a wolf.  Hahaha

She did them most of the puzzles all by herself and there must have been twenty of them. Sophia came in at one point and insisted that she help so Lilly allowed her to do two. Then Sophia moved on to other puzzles. Note to self.  Get some more puzzles. That kept them busy and quite for quite some time.

Just FYI: Lilly has been in a math book at school for a while so we're proud of her for that too.

Next year she will be attending Beach Day School which is an even better school than Beach Manor in my opinion. I tried to get Lilly in at the beginning of this year after she has spent a month or two at Beach Manor and I couldn't.  

Beach Day School happens to be located in our church and it happens to be full day compared to public school which is three hours and Beach Manor which is 3 hours of Kindergarten and then three hours of extended play & activities. Sophia had a great experience at Beach Manor, so I can't knock it, but they don't have the same teachers and I don't think they are as good. So, I think the extra individual attention that Lilly will receive at Beach Day will be fantastic.  Her schedule will be 9:30 - 2:15 (Monday - Thurs) and 9:30 - Noon (Friday).

The only thing is that Lilly absolutely hates going to church. She didn't like being in the choir and I don't think she enjoys sitting quietly waiting for the children's moment when she can leave the service. She honestly clings to me often when we're in the building...especially when I'm her teacher for Sunday school for the day. Sophia, on the other hand, absolutely loves choir and church.

I'm not certain the first couple of days are going to go so smoothly at Beach Day School, but I'm hoping Lilly will really enjoy herself soon enough. She has a friend in the class already. It's Norah.

The school projects are incredibly creative and clever. I see them every week because I teach Sunday school in the Kindergarten classroom.  They also have a Kindermusik class each week and an Abrakadoole Art class built into their weekly schedule too. Both have always been extra-curricular activities for us and now it's built in! Very nice.