What We Learned In Preschool

When we sent The Goblin Child to preschool in the darkest depths of winter it was to give her something to do. She was bored sick in the house, it was miserably cold outside and we had all had enough. Strangely I am surprised at all that she learned. I know, people send children to school to learn, but the scope of the things learned was impressive and today on her last day I thought I would reminisce.

She learned about Cat in The Hat. Our night time reading will never be the same. We used to have a greater variety of books we were aloud to read but then The Cat in the Hat came to visit. She was enthralled.

Scrub a dub came to visit. Now she washes her hands regularly and with great intensity, using proper technique and time length. We have never spent so much time in public bathrooms. But her hands are sparkly clean.

She learned about the importance of wearing sunblock. They made really cool bracelets that change color in the sun, she showed it to everybody and the cousins oohed and awed appropriately. One day while getting ready to work cattle she ran back in the house for a minute and came out covered in sun block. Her face and hands were caked and white. She told me how important it was to protect your skin, I couldn’t argue. I could spread it out a little more evenly. I feared for the state of the kitchen but needlessly, she had only gotten it where it needed to be.

She made lots of new friends. One was a particular favorite, it worried us a little. She would come home and tell us all about how she liked him so much because he took really good care of her. Then the only other girl came back and her other friend was forgotten.

She learned to sing a beautiful rendition of Jesus loves me, without all the words but with movements.

And the absolute best of all was the time that as we sat down to supper she said that we had forgotten to pay. We went back and forth for awhile trying to figure out what she was talking about, things can be a bit confusing sometimes. She meant pray. We had forgotten to say our prayers. Not only did she remind us, she said the prayer. We asked if she had learned that from eating at her good preschool friends house, she had gone over for lunch a couple of times. No she said, she had learned it at preschool. They say their prayers at snack time. We didn’t send her to a church preschool planning on this being what she learned, just didn’t think about it, not that we didn’t want it, but we are so thrilled with all the knowledge she brought home.

They enjoyed a field trip to the park today. She loved it.