First day of school

Maya went off to her first day of preschool today after our long trip back to Cairo from the U.S., and she was a bit jet lagged but she made it. Mike took her to school (because Maya failed to wake me from my jet lagged stupor).

Maya is going to go to school five days a week this year, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m., and according to her school director she will have to be a little more serious about school this year because she is now one of the big kids.

Mike told the school director that Maya had started getting a little interested in letters this summer while we were in the U.S., likely due to more exposure from the overwhelming presence of English signs everywhere. He also found out an interesting tidbit about Maya's school behavior.

Apparently last year unbeknownst to us, the director of Maya's preschool had tried to have Maya do lessons and worksheets with the bigger kids. But Maya had often refused to finish and gone off to play in the baby room instead. That sneaky kid!!. Maya was a little young for the lessons and the school is sort of Montessori-ish and they were not keen to force her. So she got away with it -- which is fine with us as we don't want to push to much academic stuff on her in preschool anyway!

But this year she will be with the bigger kids and she is going to do the big kid lessons. And the director of the school (who also is very involved and works especially with the older kids) thinks that since Maya is now going to school five days a week, it will be easier to get her to focus on learning rather than doing play kitchen all day long...

No more baby room for you, kid!