Today Alan met up with his class — including Ella and Almas (pictured with Alan) — at Preston’s Hope Community Park to celebrate a great school year.  They had a blast!

Two more weeks of preschool and then it’s on to Kindergarten!!

As the school year draws to a close, here are the latest developments from preschool:

-Alan’s favorite classroom topic has been learning about the 3 R’s – Recycle, Reduce, and Reuse.  Together we went out and bought a recycle bin for home so that Alan could do his part to preserve the environment. Speaking of which, he also told me that littering is bad for the earth and puts animals in danger because “they could eat something they’re not supposed to.”

-To Alan’s delight, the bird feeder he made this year (pictured in the March 20th post) has been feeding the birds at Grandma Debbie’s house for the past month!  Alan has taken pride in checking on it and refilling it each week.

-Alan continues to play “PJ Masks” with Joshua and Ella every day at school.  Joshua plays Catboy, Ella plays Owelette, and Alan plays Gecko, while the other kids take turns playing the villains Romeo and Luna Girl.  Alan’s been known to use Gecko’s “super strength” power at home to lift heavy things from time to time too. 🙂

-Alan’s best friend at school has been Joshua ever since he joined the class midway through the year. They’ve had several playdates already this spring.

-Last month Alan was registered for kindergarten and he’s now officially ready to go in the fall!

Pictured is a recent entry to Alan’s Newsbook for preschool.  He enjoys practicing his Chinese characters and music notes every night. The inspiration for his “auto-sled” invention came earlier this week when Alan and his classmates went sledding outside the school!

Two months into the school year now, Alan has had a chance to experience some fun activities.  The highlights include a field trip to Patterson Farm, making applesauce from scratch, carving pumpkins, and participating in Fall Fun Day.

Alan loves going to school and gets a lot of attention from the teacher and her assistants in the 9-student class. According to the teacher’s report at the last parent-teacher conference, Alan’s ready for kindergarten right now.

He’s gotten into a good homework routine with his nightly “Newsbook” assignments and has made nice strides in writing neat letters in a straight line.

Alan shares a cubby (pictured above) with Ella and is best friends with Natalee.  It’s a great group of kids.

Preschool is off to a great start for Alan!  He enjoys his teacher and classmates and has gotten into a good routine after the first two weeks of the school year.

This year Alan has nightly homework.  He has to write an entry in his “Newsbook” every night after school, describing his activities, interests, or thoughts for the day.  Pictured above are Alan’s first six entries.

Today Alan and his class graduated from Mrs. Davisson’s 4-year old Pre-K class at St. Clare!

It was a beautiful day to cap off a great school year.  A picnic at Oakville Park (Alan’s favorite park) followed a very nice ceremony at the St. Clare Church.  Alan shared his special day with 9 family members, including his parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and aunt and uncle.

I commend Alan for the progress he made this year.  Going into the school year I was worried about Alan having separation anxiety and using the school bathroom alone.  But he definitely exceeded my expectations, not only by clearing those two hurdles, but also through the friendships he made and the personal growth he demonstrated in areas such as listening, sharing, coloring, cutting, and writing.

Alan ended up loving school and being a part of a great group of kids.  I loved having the opportunity to drive Alan to school and pick him up every Friday that I worked from home.  I was greeted with a running hug, a shout of “Daddy!,” and a big smile each and every time Alan saw me after school.  I looked forward to that special moment every week in the “large motor room.”

Overall Alan made great strides towards becoming more independent this school year.  Hopefully the summer passes by fast so Alan can get started on his second year of preschool!

As the school year wound to a close, Alan finished the year on a high note.

In May he went on his first class field trip, to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens, and had a teddy bear picnic in the St. Clare Library.  At the Botanical Gardens, Alan visited the Glasshouse, Woodlands Garden, and the Hershey’s Children’s Garden.  He fell and scraped his knees on the field trip, but he was brave and otherwise had a great time.  For the teddy bear picnic, he brought in the teddy bear that I brought back from Thailand in 2006.

The learning themes of May included butterflies, insects, and summer.  Alan took a liking to butterflies and included some in his classroom artwork and drawings.  He also learned his address this month.

For his final show-and-tell, Alan brought in Zuma from “Paw Patrol” for the letter Z.  At the start of the year, I picked out Alan’s toys for show-and-tell for him.  But by the end of the year, Alan was able to look at the schedule himself and pick out show-and-tell toys on his own.  Another sign of his increasing independence.

Since the last preschool update, Alan has continued to roll along at school.  In fact Mrs. Davisson even told me one day that he’s “really taking off” in the classroom!

Nowadays the class is divided into teams of four that are competing to finish daily assignments first.  Alan has really gotten into the spirit, and so have his teammates.  One of the daily tasks involves using scissors to cut out letters of the alphabet.  Alan likes to get to school early to be the first one to the cutting box, and after he’s done cutting, he encourages his teammates to cut their letters too.  Alan says the kids celebrate with high fives once they’re all finished. 🙂

In March some of the special learning units for the kids included classroom demonstrations on musical instruments, spring, and the history of Easter.  In April the class had an Easter party and learned about water, rain, fish, and flowers.

Alan’s artwork, including the umbrella pictured below, took on a spring theme as well.  The little guy, despite the silly picture he took in front of his cubby (above), doesn’t shy away from having fun at school!

Over the last couple months Alan has really taken off at school.  He loves it so much that he was disappointed by two snow days this winter.  His ability to color inside the lines has improved considerably, and he’s getting better at writing the letters of the alphabet.  Both improvements led to a very positive progress report from the teacher at the midway point of the year in January!

Some new activities for Alan’s class have included an introduction to technology (focused around iPad learning sessions), a post office simulation exercise, and a diversity/nationality lesson.  Alan declared himself to be an American (note the American flag in the picture above) because in his words, “I speak English.”  But he still honored his Chinese background by presenting three sentences on the Chinese New Year during Heritage Day, with two Chinese lanterns as visual aids.

Earlier this month, Alan also had his first Valentine’s party!  We bought “Cars” themed valentines and Alan wrote his name on all 21 cards by himself.

The month of February ended with Alan demonstrating the strides he’s made towards becoming more independent.  Today he walked over to the show-and-tell calendar on the kitchen table, identified that next week’s letter is “K,” went to his room to get a key, and told me that he’s ready for show-and-tell.  I was very proud watching him during that sequence of events!

Over the last two months, Alan turned in his first homework assignment (creating a disguise for a turkey), had a Thanksgiving feast with the Kindergarteners, and had a Christmas party with his class!  He’s learned about shapes, eating healthy, and acts of kindness.

Perhaps Alan’s biggest accomplishment is learning to write his name all by himself!  He’s so good at it that he’ll be signing all of our holiday cards this year.  He also did a name-writing demonstration at my office today, when he came in for his annual visit.  🙂

Now over two months into his school career, Alan is off to a great start.  He’s made a friend named Grady, loves circle time, loves the music room even more, and has mastered finding toys to bring in for his weekly letter-themed show-and-tell sessions.  He’s working on learning to name body parts, how to use scissors, how to hold a pencil, and how to color inside the lines.  And he took his first school pictures, had a “silly dress day,” and had his first school party for Halloween!

Outside of school, Alan went to his first birthday party for a classmate.  It’s good to be 4!

The countdown is on to the first day of Preschool!  Two months from today Alan will be walking through the doors of St Clare for the first day of his school career.

We’ve begun to prepare for school, including buying the necessary supplies.  Pictured above is the new Cars backpack that Alan picked out for himself!

P.S. Alan wants everyone to know the backpack has lights that light up when the backpack is tapped!