Lillian's 1st Day of Preschool
In the midst of all the excitement of Alexa's first week of Kindergarten, I don't want to leave my little Lillian in the dust...BECAUSE, it was her first week of PRESCHOOL, too!
She's been visiting the preschool classroom for the past couple of weeks, but started full time on Tuesday. They chose to move Lillian up to preschool before she turned 3, because they felt that she was ready and advanced enough to take part in the preschool lessons and activities. We all (Adam and I - and the teachers) thought that the transition would be quite easy with her. But, she was a little more hesitant than we expected. Luckily, her toddler teacher, Ms. Alli, also moved up to be a teacher alongside Ms. Carolyn in Lillian's preschool room. So, they transitioned together, making Lillian's first week a little easier on her.
Adam and I also decided that now that she is in the preschool room, that we'll have her eat hot lunch rather than pack her lunch every day. She seems to really like this and is excited to look at her lunch menu every morning to see what kind of lunch will be served that day. I'm happy that she will be getting a better variety of foods during her lunch time.
We are so proud of Lillian and we're anxious to see all the fun things she will start learning in preschool. Click on All Stars Montessori in my sidebar for more information on the Montessori philosophy.
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Today's topic is - Traveling with a Toddler.
Since I do not have experience traveling through the air with my toddler, I will talk about traveling by car. Here are a few tips that have helped me.
1.) ALWAYS have a pack of baby wipes handy. My kids potty trained early and have been out of diapers for a long time, but my husband and I still buy baby wipes in bulk. We use them for everything..I mean everything. They are nice to have for spills, sticky messes, wiping noses, ect. I keep a pack in my purse all the time.
2.) If you are one of the lucky ones who have a DVD player built into your vehicle - I'm totally jealous. If not, buy one. When we visit Grandma's and Grandpa's we are on the road for a couple of hours and it's nice to be able to pop in a movie and say, "We'll be there when the movie is over."
3.) Books on Cassette are another awesome thing to have during long car trips. The kids can listen to the story and follow along in the book. If you don't want to buy them, your public library should have a nice selection.
4.) Snacks. Whether you are traveling short or long distances, your toddler is bound to get hungry at some point and planning in advance to have good healthy snacks on hand is much better than stopping at McDonalds or a convenient store for treats (like we usually do...Eek!)
5.) I also usually pack a bag of barbies, ponies, magna doodles, paper and crayons, books and other small games to sit between the girls in the back seat, so they can have plenty of things to do.
6.) This really isn't geared toward toddlers, but found that it worked well for my Kindergartener the last time we had a long trip to Grandpa and Grandma's. I gave her a notebook and pen and told her to write down every town we went through until we got to their house. It kept her occupied and she had fun counting all the towns we went through along the way.
7.) And last but not least, if you can time it right, try to do your traveling during either nap time or bed time. If we know we have a long trip in the car, we either leave during Lillian's nap time so she can sleep most of the way, or leave so we are driving when it's a good time for her to fall asleep for the night. We put her in her jammies before we take off, so we can just carry her to her bed when we get home.
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