SPL's Blog

On Wednesday May 28, we said a sad goodbye to Preschool Family, SPL's preschool for the last 2 years (we'll be attending Mountain View preschool this fall as it's closer to our house). Preschool Family celebrated its 60th anniversary the year we started, in 2006 (I remember a man who was ahead of me in line to sign up saying he was there to sign up his grandkids this time around :-).

It's both a parent education and preschool program that serves families with children from 0 to young 5s, and as a result, many families in our community have built life-long friendships with the parents and kids they've met through PSF, and some have started 2nd careers as preschool teachers after participating as parents in PSF.

One great example of this is our teacher: Teacher Judy. She was a nurse before having her 3 kids and then got involved in Preschool Family when they were young. Now, she's celebrating her 8th year as a preschool teacher, her youngest is in high school, her middle is starting college, and her oldest is working "in the real world." She tells stories of still getting together w/ the moms and dads they met years ago.

As you can tell from the photo, SPL *loves* Teacher Judy. His "big plan" for the last day of school (hatched in the car on the drive to school) was to sit next to Judy during snacktime (usually Lucy and Adam were in those 2 seats). pretty much every class this spring, his usual routine would include walking around the room w/ Teacher Judy pointing out what toys were in the wrong place and they'd laugh as he said his now famous inside joke line "what's *that* doing there?"

Since it was the last day, we celebrated all the summer birthdays: 6 in total, and . SPL wasn't too into the candle so

I've made some good friends too and have had a blast watching the kids grow from last year to this year. We've shared the same class with BH, KF, and MR for 2 years now — first Teacher Monica and now Teacher Judy. I remember KF being the *first* kid I'd even seen SPL engage and play with by himself — it was Fall 2006, SPL was 16.5 months old, and they played peekaboo in the playhouse outside in the school yard (I also happened to capture it on video — it's about 1 min and 23 seconds into his 17 month video montage).

and

then and

and

(SPL and MR are 14 months old)

(back when it was a novelty)

(spring 2007, 20 months old): preschool was great @ inspiring the artist in Sam

And this year, in Teacher Judy's class (young 2s):

change week-to-week

class and

Thank you to everyone @ Preschool Family — we will miss you!