Month: April 2010

Leilani’s First Application Essay

Leilani had applications at her other preschools, but this is the first one with a long essay. It’s for Island School, on Kaua’i, for 2011 when we plan to be moving back. Of course, this is one that we the parents write, we can’t wait until she can write her own.

First application with a photo, too.

The application said: “Write a short essay that describes your child’s strengths, temperament, and his/her experiences in a group (such as playgroups, play dates, story times, church, etc.). Please include other information that you would like us to know. Have fun with this!”

We wrote:

Leilani is brave but very reasonable and cautious. For example, she is learning to skateboard with Andy, but when she saw teenagers skating across the road, she said–unprompted: “I think that is dangerous. When I am that big, I will always carry my skateboard across the street. Then the others will do that too.” Sonja teaches art in her classroom 3 hours/week, where she sees that Leilani likes to set a good example and can really show and motivate the other kids to do the right thing. We love dropping her off at preschool and seeing the other kids run to her, yell her name, and be so happy to see her. She loves her current school, which is why we want to keep her there for her last year of preschool. After that, she knows she has to change schools, and she is looking forward to moving back to Kaua’i.

Mount Tam 3/21

On Sunday, we hiked the Coastal trail to the grassy hills with more flowers and more views.

Leilani wanted the camera to film herself. The first minute of this video is “Best Of” – the rest is uncut.

Mount Tamalpais 3/20

We went camping early Saturday and got a spot easily at the Pantoll campground. As soon as we had pitched the tent we headed for the Cataract trails to see the waterfalls. Leilani hiked over 3 miles that day. Actually she ran most of it, and then stopped too often.

Pink Trillium

Checker Lily

Nom! Nom! Nom! – Fields of Miner’s Lettuce

Calypso Orchid – Fairy Slipper

We call these “Haensel und Gretel,” they bloom on the same plant with the flowers starting out blue then turning pink, but I didn’t get a photo with both together.

Bagheera sleeping on a log. Wait…. that’s not Bagheera…

… and she is not really sleeping.

Rotkaepchen

Auf Deutsch.

Silk Painting at MNS

We painted silks at school. Only Sonja would come up with the idea of doing that with preschoolers…

That was the practice piece

And then the real one. Leilani and I had practiced at home, and then I invited her friend Sophia over to see if I could manage 2… that worked pretty well, at least while they focused. So I took the painting that they had started to school. I estimate 50% of the painting was done by 3 girls, Leilani, Sophia and Madeline, but most kids got a chance to paint at least a few flowers or leaves. I managed to take photos of all but 2.

Most of it went really nicely, but at one time N. started: “I don’t like J… she is not my friend…” so I needed to deal with the 2 girl, focusing 100% on them. My little helper Leilani, who had so far been extremely good, showing kids how to do it and even erasing others mistakes got jealous. “Hmmm. I think I will paint this leaf pink…” and she did. I made her sit on a chair and take a break to think about it (didn’t even call it timeout) while I erased the pink which caused a *major* meltdown… we needed teacher Liselle and a snack o get Leilani back on track.

Leilani erasing a mistake with a q-tip