Thursday was Juliette's last day of preschool and the parents were invited to attend a brunch at her school. While we were eating, they showed a slideshow of pictures of the kids from the year and gave us our child's "portfolio" to look at (and keep).

See how thick it is? Since Juliette attended the lab preschool for UL, she was constantly being observed by students as part of their early childhood education classes. This spring semester, there were three students assigned to observe only her as part of their class project and this portfolio was what they put together for their final grade. It's a little odd to know that these students spent many hours watching Juliette, taking notes, and assessing whether she was meeting the GLE's (grade level expectations) for pre-kindergarten. Almost like she was a little rat in a lab! Although she would have learned just as much elsewhere, we're pretty sure we wouldn't have gotten all this information in a binder! For instance, the three students who observed her wrote about a dozen anecdotal records that will be really sweet to look back upon when she is older. One story in particular was this:

"Juliette was playing with AE and AV (initials used by me for privacy) in the dramatic play area. AV and Juliette were wearing crowns because they were pretending to be Mardi Gras queens. AE took the crown off AV's head and AV began to cry. Juliette patted AV on the back and said, "Why are you crying? It's be okay, AV." AV explained that AE took her crown and Juliette said, "It's okay, you can wear my crown." Juliette gave AV her crown and AV stopped crying."

Isn't that just precious? Because Juliette is an only child, we don't get to see these kind of interactions with other children very regularly, and now we have it on paper (and many other anecdotes about playing house with her friends, etc.). I just loved this part of the portfolio!

Also in the folder were all the GLEs for pre-kindergarten for math, science, social studies, creative arts, health and physical development, language and literacy, and social and emotional development in chart form with evidence of when they observed Juliette meeting those GLEs. For a mom whose child won't turn 5 until two days after her first day of kindergarten, I worry a little bit if she knows everything she should, so seeing all the GLEs (and that she has met all of them) helps to ease my fears!

And, no preschool portfolio is complete with artwork! This one below was my absolute favorite and I almost started laughing hysterically when I saw it, but I was able to contain myself since we were at the brunch.

It's bittersweet to see her preschool days come to an end. We wish she could stay this age forever, but we are also really excited about her going to kindergarten. She'll be going to an arts and technology award-winning school where an hour of each day will be spent on the arts. Every few weeks they'll rotate between visual arts, dance, string instruments, vocal arts, drama, band, and piano. They'll also be visiting the computer lab frequently (which is where the technology part comes in). This school is part of the Lafayette Parish school system, but students aren't zoned for it, they are chosen by a random computer lottery to attend. It's part of Lafayette Parish's "Schools of Choice" program, which provides families with alternatives to their zoned schools. Aside from the arts & technology school, there are also French-immersion, Spanish-immersion, Chinese-immersion and montessori elementaries that are part of the Schools of Choice program. (The language immersion schools are taught half of the day in that language and half of the day in English.) In order to attend these schools, you have to ask for your child's name to be put in the lottery and then wait to see if it is drawn. These programs are really popular and not everyone is chosen, so we are thankful that Juliette's name was drawn. And, since it's part of the public school system, it's still considered a public school and therefore, free to attend! So, that's probably more than you wanted to know, but I don't think I've blogged about this before, so I thought I'd share.

Check back tomorrow for a special Mother's Day post!