Maddie's BIG Day!

Today was a special day for Maddie because it was her portfolio sharing day in class. I took a half day off of work so that I could spend the entire morning in her class and it was just special from beginning to end. When we walked into the class, Maddie immediately discovered the chrysalis had opened up and that there was a butterfly in the cage that she and her classmates had been watching for several weeks. The fact that the word, "chrysalis" came out of her mouth just about floored me. What three years old know that word and can recall it from the file banks in their brain?

Maddie and her classmates have been making books in class. Over several months, they were given folded paper, made a cover page, drew pictures in the middle pages and drew on an end page. They then sat down with Ms. Preeti and described what they had drawn so that she could write it down for them. The class then decided to invite all of the parents to sell their books so that they could have an ice cream party. Andy came into class for almost an hour today and Maddie sat with both of us and she read her books to us. We discovered that going "bonk" is a major theme in all of her books! She then told us how much to pay for each book and we obliged quite willingly!

Maddie followed her sale of books with the sharing of her portfolio from the year. Pretti had laminated a poem that Maddie had her hand prints on and gave them to the parents right now. I am so pregnant right that I immediately teared up because when she was 6 months old in Saudi Arabia, Val Awad had made the same poem and hand prints for us. I still have it in my classroom today! Maddie shared all of her things from the year and was so very proud of her work... each and every item had a story and the fact that she could describe in such detail things from October was amazing!

We ended the day by going out the playground and I pulled Maddie and all of her classmates in a wagon. Watching children at play is just so pure... I don't know how else to describe it! Maddie was so happy though to have her mommy be the center of attention - she actually seemed proud that I was playing with everybody! What a great year!

Maddie's Classmates 2006-2007