All Grown Up

Okay, so she's only five years old. But she handled it all so maturely. I have heard it remarked that it is such a big step, not for the child, but for the parents. Yes, it was Lexie's first day of Kindergarten. Mind you, in Utah, there is an intermediate step of half-day Kindergarten. But this stuff here in Omaha, well, it's the full-day event. Gavin kept asking all day, "Where's Lexie?" and I reminded him she was at school. I am piecing things together for you, so here's the full story:

Lexie has been selected for an incredible opportunity to attend her Kindergarten class at the zoo. (Here she is with her new teacher.) It's not just a field trip or temporary thing, she gets to do it the whole year. It is routed through the elementary school here near our house, so the teachers keep the same standards, etc. But the zoo worked out a special program with the school, and a few kids have a neat Kindergarten unique from anywhere I've ever heard of! They have their own special classroom and everything. We found out about the program before we moved to Omaha, and I'd hoped since then that she would be able to do this class. We found out in the spring that she was selected, and here it is already! (I thought, "How cool is that to say that you went to Kindergarten at the zoo?"
Yesterday there was an open house where we went to meet Lexie's new teacher and find out how things work there. Lexie is excited that she gets to wear these awesome safari hats on the class "walk-abouts." Each day the kids will be able to walk around the zoo (for about an hour!) and learn about animals. They wear these hats so they are recognizable as a group.

We decided to make a zoo day out of it, to keep the excitment of starting Kindergarten at the zoo the next day. So Danny and I took the kids around the zoo for a couple of hours. Honestly, if you are ever out here, you should let us take you to the zoo! It is so awesome!

So after a fun day preparing, here we are saying goodbye to the kids. These are all the VG kids in our neighborhood that go to the Zoo Kindergarten class. Lexie is excited that many of her friends are with her.

So the teacher and her assistant had the kids line up and walked them off through the gate and the parents all watched. They were off to great adventures! (Sniff...I was brave, I can't believe she is old enough to be in school all day.)

The whole family went to pick Lexie up and see how her first day went. The teacher gave us parents a badge: "I Survived the First Day of Zoo Kindergarten." I think I made it okay. Lexie is independent and confident to go off without me, no problem. She loves school and I know she will have an incredible time this year. After we talked to her about her day and what she did in her class, she said her favorite thing was that they got to take a nap after lunch!