Claire in Kindergarten!

I am so happy to report that so far Claire has had a wonderful experience being a kindergartner so far!  Claire loves going to school each day.  Jacob drops Claire off at school and he says that she has lots of friends and that the kids all ask to sit by her at lunch and walk to class together.  Claire talks a lot about her friends at school and says she has only had to move her green card to yellow once for bad behavior.  I am so glad that she has had an enjoyable experience with school so far.  It is strange going from being around Claire all day to having her gone for 7 hours of the day.  But, it really works for us.  Claire is a social butterfly and it is really good for her to be around other kids and to have her attention focused on learning for a majority of the day.  Claire is such a big girl to come home on the bus each day without any worries.  Claire has done very well on her schoolwork and seems to be a quick learner.  It has been so fun to talk about the things she is learning about the world and science.  Claire is learning to read and I am always impressed with how many words she already knows.  So far, homework has been a breeze and I just cross my fingers that it will always be this way.  Overall, this whole school thing has been an easy and wonderful transition for all of us.

Claire's first project of a habitat.  We got the arctic habitat.

I made some play-dough a few weeks ago and Claire loved it!  She is making cooies out of her play-dough.

Claire was thrilled to finally be student of the week a few weeks ago.  She picked out some pictures of herself and the family.  She put on that her favorite things which are: My Little Pony, chocolate chip cookies, and Elsa from Frozen.  Her dislikes are: oranges, bees, and fire.  The things Claire likes are: cats, coloring, the color gold, flowers, pizza, and books.  Claire put that she wants to be a missionary when she grows up.  Super cute!

Claire is so sweet and helpful.  I am always so impressed when she encourages Tommy to clean up by making it a game.  Lately, Claire wants to help cook and set the table up like we are having a party.  Claire wants to be able to do everything by herself, like pouring milk which is difficult for me because I still see her as so little (and I don't want a mess!).  Claire and Tommy still play together a lot and it is fun to listen to the games they make up together.  She can be really helpful in getting Tommy things and imagining things together.  Claire also loves Lincoln and is so excited to see him when she gets home from school.  She plays with him and entertains him a lot!

Her best friend is Sydney from church and she would love it if we could do a play date every day.  This girl is social!!  Everyday she asks if we are going anywhere?  Did anyone invite us over?  Or did we invite anyone over?  We actually just had 4 snow days in a row, then Claire was sick for 2 more days, plus we need to include the weekend, so she was home for 8 days in a row with me.  We were all very happy for her to get back to school so she could fulfill her social needs!

Although Claire is a sweetheart most of the time, she can be incredibly frustrating!  She enjoys causing problems if she knows it will make Tommy upset and she has become quite defiant at times.  I've heard it called kinder-tude, where a kindergartner is learning new things and beginning to think they are pretty smart, maybe even smarter than mommy and daddy.  We are really working on this and also on 1st time obedience without arguing.  It is funny how I can love her to pieces, but at the same time she can cause me so much frustration.  I am trying to remember to be patient and I am confident we will work it out!