Make-Up Open House at Koen's Kindergarten & Other Friday Happenings

So I've been dying to figure out what's going on in Koen's Kindergarten class.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to attend his Open House, but thankfully his teacher was so sweet and let us make another time to go through the Open House Scavenger Hunt she had planned that gave us a glimpse of Koen's routine at Kindergarten.  So, on Friday morning, I went in early with Koen to school for this special hunt.  His teacher had a list of questions for Koen to help us answer as we went around the room finding out about his day.  It was a very clever idea and I was so excited to finally check out Koen's room, activities and work.  Here's some of the tour...  Currently they are doing a "mystery" unit, so here's Koen's picture hanging from the ceiling in a magnifying glass.  So cute!

There's a garden behind the school and Koen's class gets to work out there once a week.  A snapped some pictures of the collages where he was photographed working out there.

Here's his little chair.  So surreal that my baby is in school!

This is some artwork Koen did.  The Kindergartners get a lot of hallway space to display their work and the teacher does a great job of having it out there all organized.  Koen was so proud to show it to me.

Each Kindergartner got to do a self-portrait life-size painting and then they were taped to the ceiling.  This is the one Koen did of himself.  I think he's way cuter in person, but it's still pretty awesome (in a hilarious way...check out his face!).

Here's Koen in front of his "goals" sheet.  The parents were asked to also contribute goals for their child this year, so that's in the picture too.  Mostly, Doug and I are just hoping that the Lord uses this year to give Koen a great start into his education.

The first unit at school was Creation.  Koen was proud to tell me about his Creation timeline and he was great at naming what happened each of the 7 days.  I loved seeing his illustrations!

Finally, here's our completed Scavenger Hunt Questionnaire (this is in the post mostly for Doug's benefit).  But I'm so glad the teacher put this extra effort in so that we parents could get a sense of our child's day.

Thanks to Koen's teacher for a great start to the year and a very special morning for Koen and I checking it all out.  Oh yeah, that same morning I had a meeting to attend and I got to take a quick pic of Koen in his classroom.  He didn't know I was there getting a little snapshot of the start of his day.  Look at him working on his drawing.  Love it!

While I was at school with Koen, Doug was at home with the little guys.  He loved it just like I do.  When I got home I got some cute pictures of Tavin and Penn sort of playing together.  Penn was under the jungle gym and Tav decided to play under there with his construction trucks just so he could be close to Penn.  Pretty special.

As you can see, Penn was trying to roll over again.  He didn't quite get it, but it was fun to see him trying again.  It had been two weeks since he accomplished that feat, so it was neat to see him working on it again.

Then I got in his face for just a close-up adorable Penn shot.  Ahhhh.

Doug ended up taking Tavin with him to pick up Koen and I had packed them a lunch so that Doug could take the big boys to Blue Slide Park.  Here they are having lunch.  Tavin is also giving a thumbs up and Koen is looking at it and saying, "good job, Tav."

Tavin brought his construction vehicles to work with, so Doug set up a little work area for him.  This picture is awesome (good job, babe), because you can see Koen at the base of the slide in the background of Tavin's concentrated efforts.

Koen had fun getting creative on the slide and Doug took a video as proof...

Of course the boys spent a good deal of time on the swings.  Here's the normal shot.

Then the silly face shot.

An important development on Friday was Tavin's new buddy, "Zim."  It's a stuffed elephant we were given and we decided Tav would appreciate it most.  Well, we were right!  He's had it in his bed for naps and bed and on this first day with it, he took it along for the van ride.  As you can see, Tavin and Zim are on their way home for a much needed nap!

We continue to enjoy the proceeds of "Rad" days here in the Burgh.  Doug and Koen visited the Pittsburhg Glass Works on Penn Ave. after Koen's rest time on Friday afternoon. They got to see a glass vase being made (see below) and also checked out a bunch of interesting glass artwork.  

Well, that's quite a day.  That's "all" I captured in photos.