As some of you may know, this year instead of sending Mylie to a preschool program, we opted for doing a co-op preschool. I vacillated on this decision a lot at the end of last year. We really did like our preschool program at Liberty High School. The administrator and the student teachers were excellent. I found, however, that it was becoming way too easy for me to “check-out” in terms of Mylie’s education.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I was super concerned with the curriculum at the 3-year old level. But too often, when I’d ask what she did at school, and she’d say “nothing,” I would just leave it at that, and not care to ask any more.

I decided that was a bad precedent to set going forward. So this year we dove into a co-op. And today the inevitable happened… I had to teach.

We are using a wonderful curriculum that I think is so cool. It’s called Kidgenuity (formerly known as Smart Cookies), and although the lessons are fairly well layed-out, they do require a bit of prep work, especially your first time out of the gate. Let’s just say we’ve had a few late nights around here for the last week. I was nervous about 8 (mostly unfamiliar) kids descending on my house, and delving into paint projects and glue sticks and the like. So I spent extra time to make sure I was ultra prepared.

And I think the preparation paid off! The morning went swimmingly, and I actually nearly enjoyed myself. In fact, the only major hitch was this:

Yes, don’t let his sweet innocent face fool you. This kid was a holy terror during preschool. I had decided to keep him around, because I thought he might enjoy some of the activities, or else he could spend his time reading all the books. But oh, no. Never one to back down around kids twice his size, Nolan must have thought these kids were here to take away his life and liberty, and he staked claim on his property for sure. He spent the entire first hour and a half SCREAMING. He screamed while I held him, and screamed louder if I set him down. So I spent half the time trying to direct traffic with one hand and a bursting ear drum. Needless to say, Nolan’s preschool privileges have been revoked, and he will not be joining us next time.

Other than that, however, it was pretty fun. I especially enjoyed getting to see all of the kids’ talents emerge during the independent station work. Each kid gravitated towards a different activity, and it was amazing to see how some would do SO well at a certain station that was so difficult for others. And then the roles would switch at a different activity.

It almost makes me look forward to teaching again. They’re definitely a bunch of smart cookies.