Last day of preschool 2013

The end of another year of preschool. I can't believe it. I can't believe that in another year we will need to send her to kindergarten. For now, we know she has one more year of preschool left, but we do need to think about where she will go after she turns 5, yikes!!

They had a pajama party on the last day of school. With her friends...



Baby Bear had 6 teachers in her class and they were all really great. We are so fortunate to have such wonderful teachers to teach and care for her all year. To show our appreciation for them, I got them some Yogurtland gift cards and wrapped them pretty. With our warm So Cal summers I am sure they can find use to cool down.



Baby Bear just loves her school and has been quite sad that she is on summer break. I did sign her up for a few weeks of summer school so she will get some time with her friends. Plus her birthday party is coming up in a couple of weeks, so she will get to hang out with her little friends in no time...

Making Valentines

We spent part of the weekend making some Valentines for family and friends.

Valentines that Baby Bear made for family.



We used some of Baby Bear's past artwork from school to decorate the inside of the Valentines.



A good way to re-purpose her millions of art pieces that come home from school.



I put together some Valentines for her preschool and daycare friends. I was inspired by several ideas I found floating around on pinterest and designed a little something myself.



I am all for non-candy Valentines and figured parents would be happy for that. So we went with Valentine's straws.



I also put together a little something for the teachers and Baby Bear's day care ladies. Again, I merged a few ideas from pinterest and designed something for them.



I knew I wouldn't have time to bake so I went with something I could put together ahead of time.



I hope everyone enjoys their Valentines.

Crafty with mommy

This weekend we completed a little craft to get ready for Valentine's Day. Baby Bear wanted to decorate so we did.

I was inspired by pinterest and found this nice, simple, and relatively clean little craft to do.



I drew some lines for her to cut and she cut the "strips" of paper. I also cut strips of paper that we used for the final project. She enjoyed cutting and working on her cutting skills. After the strips were cut, I stapled the hearts together and punched the holes, instructions found here. Baby Bear tried to help with a couple but the stapler and hole punch were a little hard for her to do.

Baby Bear threaded the yarn through the hearts. (A little tip, tape the end of the yarn so it doesn't fray and it makes it easy for little hands to thread).



I tied off the ends and tied onto our chandelier and voila, decoration done.



Baby Bear was quite proud of her decoration.

Schools out for summer

Tomorrow, is the last day of preschool for Baby Bear. For the last day, the class is going on a little field trip to a park. So in today was the last day at the school. The teachers send home a gift for the kids, a bucket with a shovel and sand toys. A perfect summer gift. They know Baby Bear so well, since hers was all pink. Perfect for her. They also sent home all the photos they posted around the classroom throughout the year. That was a really cool little gift to send home to parents, there must have been 30 pictures and just seeing them from the beginning of the year until now, all of the kids have grown so much!

Tonight, I put together some teacher gifts to show them how much we appreciate them. This was inspired from this blog, where you can also download the tags. Since I really didn't have time to design my own tags this time around, this was a nice and easy gift to put together. The cups included a Jamba Juice gift card, M&Ms, and Jelly Belly candies. I hope they will enjoy them and get good use out of them. I know that the Christmas gifts that we gave them get good use; I see the coffee cups at school being used. It seemed like these drink cups were more summery.



We absolutely love Baby Bear's teachers. All 3 were awesome. I know that Baby Bear and I will be sad not to be in their class next year. I know the teachers in the next class are great and she will love them too. But there is something special about your first teachers. We didn't sign Baby Bear up for summer school, so I know she will be bummed not to go to school every day. She loves preschool and she loves going there each day. I love the school too. I know we made the right decision to start her in preschool and to send her to that preschool. The Children's School at Claremont McKenna College is awesome.

I remember hesitating in send her at such a young age, but I have seen so much change and development in Baby Bear this year. It is amazing how far she has come and how much she has grown. I am sure some of it would have happened regardless of preschool, but I really believe a great deal of her social growth occurred as a result of her preschool experience. I have seen her blossom so much socially and I see how much she has grown in so many ways: cognitively, physically, and socially. It has been so amazing to see the changes. I just can't believe how quickly my little girl is growing up.


It will be nice just bringing her to daycare all day and not having to pick her up in the middle of the day to transition her to daycare. It was a choice we made not to keep her in the preschool's after school care. Though it was a hassle, it actually worked out really well to save some money and to continue with the amazing daycare we have, we love our daycare lady, she is awesome and she loves Baby Bear so much. I know that being with her, she gets so much love and she has another set of wonderful friends of many ages. In fact her best friend is there and she gets to spend several days with her. This year has just flown by, I just can't believe it. I just wish we could slow things down a bit; it is all happening too fast. I am not ready for her to grow so quickly. I'll never be ready for that.

DIY Princess Wands

Baby Bear's preschool is having a fair this weekend. It is their biggest fundraiser and they ask parents to help out where they can. Each class puts together a basket that is auctioned at the silent auction. Her class basket theme this year is imagination. I signed up to donate accessories for pretend play, like princess wands and pirate swords. I decided to make the princess wands instead of buying the cheap plastic ones. Look at what I made...



I think they turned out pretty good. I followed the instructions from here. Very easy to make. I will be making these again.