{learn with joy! - first day of preschool eve}

The girls started preschool on Monday, so on Sunday we celebrated!  They had an open house at their school in the afternoon.  When they woke up from their nap and I told them that it was time to visit their classroom, they were so excited.  They insisted on wearing their new purple school shoes and their backpacks.  They got ready quickly and insisted that they wanted to go NOW!

They confidently walked into school and were so excited to find their classroom and explore.  They made themselves at home and immediately started playing in the kitchen, with the toy cars and trucks, checked out the computer, and were most impressed by their classroom's resident Turtle - appropriately named Myrtle.

When we got home it was time to prepare for their "back (first time) to school" celebration dinner.  The girls had picked out the menu earlier in the day by flipping through the "Real Family Food" cookbook - they selected pasta shells with cheese and tomato sauce and "also a salad with blue cheese."  How funny is that?!  I don't even like blue cheese, but they sure do :)  I put together some simple "back to school themed" decorations and we started the German tradition of a Schultuete.

When children in Germany set off for their first day in school upon entering first grade, their parents and/or grandparents present them with a big cardboard cone or "Schultüte" (or School Cone, even though the word "Tüte" translates more as "bag" from German), prettily decorated and filled with toys, chocolate, candies, school supplies, and various other goodies. It is given to children to make this anxiously awaited first day of school a little bit sweeter.

In Germany people typically purchase a Schultuete (I can still vividly picture mine from my first day of 1st grade in Germany - it was blue with with stripes and had a circular image with a drawing of children in a traditional school setting.  If only I could find a picture.) and I think you can actually purchase them online in the US (kindercones.com), but I decided to make my own which was quite simple and inexpensive.  2 pieces of poster board, 1 yard of 2 different kinds of fabric, 3 sheets of felt, glue and some ribbon ... and voila!

And although the Schultuete is typically saved until the first grade, I decided that it would be fun to start this tradition now ... and I am sure we will keep it up through the first grade and beyond as it was quite a hit with the girls.  Between the gifts in the Schultuete and the little cake we had for dessert, I think the girls thought it was their birthday party.  Lexi kept asking when we were going to sing " the happy birthday song" and also told me that she was three at some point during the evening.  Silly girls!

In any case, I think that they had a fun evening celebrating the start of school (or their 3rd birthday :)).  They went to bed happy, with their school outfits picked out and excited about school the next morning!