'preschool time'

(A rare official 'school time' activity)

I thought for Ellie's last year of preschool time, we'd be doing something very structured and well planned with daily learning objectives, art projects, a nice mix of group/independent work...

we haven't :)

and it's been just fine. Preschool this year has been reading stories while I feed Porter, and listening to Ellie read stories back to me. Or making lunch while we talk about 'What would happen if...' Math questions while I do her hair in the mornings, "What if it were 6:41? How many minutes would you have before bedtime?" An occasional real 'school time' activity where Ellie pretends she's 6 and usually plans a great 'show and tell' and we do some little activity or game. More often, it is practicing fractions while we bake muffins,  answering "How do you spell..." questions while she writes sweet notes at the kids craft table,  some Portuguese practice (from Ellie, "Let's pretend we live in Brazil and we have to say all the words that we know in português"), playing Zingo or doing puzzles with Owen, and on the spot 'homework' while Landon works on his after school checklist. 

I was reminded of the funnyness of our school time yesterday when Ellie brought me a paper plate and asked me to make her homework. And I fielded questions from Owen and Landon,  juggled Porter from knee to knee, trading places back and forth with my pencil and plate while Ellie closed her eyes in front of me waiting for the homework surprise and  I made that plate into a two-sided, draw-a-sun worksheet. One side with a 10 in the middle and math questions around the edges: draw a line to the equations that equal 10. The other side had 'ing' in the middle and Ellie drew a line to the letters or letter combinations around the edge that could make words - bring, king, thing... 

Most of all, Ellie just loves to be close to Mom. Yesterday morning Porter took a great nap and I took the chance to clean out the laundry room. Ellie followed close behind as I took trips around the house putting things away. "I love to be with my mãe" she said "We could play hide and seek and you could be the hider and I would always find you!" And truly, wherever I am during the day, little Ellie  will find me. I'm grateful for these days when she is so happy just to be close by.