Co-oping in kindergarten

The kindergarten where James and Kate go to school this year requires 5 days per semester of parent co-oping. That's 10 for me. One of those days was today. I snapped a few pictures of the kids while I was there.

To say that Kate loves the writing center, would be an understatement. There's a group of girls that tends to camp out at the writing center, writing letters to each other each day. They load up the cards and papers with stickers. It's not uncommon for Kate to have four or five letters in her mailbox at the end of the day. The boys, generally speaking, are less interested in the writing center. This has been a problem for James, who adheres strictly to the etiquette rule that if you write someone a letter, they should write you back. It's not uncommon for James to shed a few tears on the way out the door when he finds his mailbox is empty at the end of the day when he wrote someone the day before. Since I was at school this afternoon, I wrote him a note. He was so, so happy to find one from Elizabeth and one from me today.

Here's James at the writing center, writing a note to Elizabeth, one of his favorite classmates. James and Kate have had a couple of play dates with Louison, the cute French girl behind James in this picture. Louison's mom always speaks French to her two girls. She told me recently that when James is over at their house to play, James speaks Spanish to her. She doesn't speak Spanish. She thinks it funny. So do I.

Here's James over at the class chart so he can see how to spell Elizabeth's name on the front of the envelope. (He's also wearing his "Ben shirt." What must the teachers think?)

Wednesday is sharing day. Each child can bring one item that is special to them to show the class. If they made the item, they get a round of applause from the group. James brought the chain he and Kate have been working on for the last few weeks. When he showed it, he let everyone know that both he and Kate had made the chain together. They both got a round of applause. He was so proud.

Kate took her Christmas penguin. I'm quite certain she has taken a stuffed animal every Wednesday since school began. She's got plenty of stuffed animals to continue the pattern and never have a repeat. I didn't know it was possible to love stuffed animals as much as she does.