T's Special Day

Way back in September, on this day when T and I were orientated to preschool, one of our jobs was to sign up for his "Special Day". Not knowing what this really meant, I simply looked at the sign up sheet, randomly selected one of the available choices and wrote T's name in the blank. It was not long into the school year before one of T's classmates had their Special Day and I quickly came to realize that your Special Day is a really big deal. It comes with all sorts of rights and privileges in the preschool world and almost weekly since that time, T has asked me when his special day would be. Oh, wow! January was a long way off back then and I wondered to myself why I had selected a date so far into the future.....blame it on being a rookie preschool mom, I guess.

Well, today, the long awaited day finally came. As part of his Special Day, T was able to select a special snack to bring to his class. He chose doughnut holes (one of the suggested items on the list). As equally exciting as the special snack, we were able to join T in his classroom for the last 40 minutes of his day and participate in some of the happenings in his room. We got to watch T be the special helper for the day and lead calendar time for his group. He did a great job counting out the days on the calendar, checking the weather out the window and dressing the classroom frog appropriately according to his weather report. After that, we got to watch him hard at work with the letter "M". While the kids worked, one of T's teachers offered Z her own little "work" to do. She was quite enthralled with it all. This was followed by a whole variety of activities especially targeted for T's special day. First, he got to pick a special treat from the treasure chest which was then followed by his classmates singing him a very special song.

Titus Is Special from mslevang on Vimeo.

Then came snack time - with the much anticipated doughnut holes. T had told me that he was going to get to "invite each of my friends to snack". I wasn't really sure what he meant by that, but he was certainly excited to do it. Today I learned just what he was talking about. When it came time for snack, he got to call each of the kids by name, one at time, and invite them to join him for his special snack. So special! He also had a special "Jesus Loves Me" place mat at his table spot (something I have heard about for months now) and he also got to roll the table prayer dice which selected the prayer the group said before they ate their snack. He rolled, "Come Lord Jesus"......so cute. We had special spots next to T for snack time, too.The doughnut holes were followed by some singing. The theme this week has been Nursery Rhymes and T has been singing a version of Humpty Dumpty many times a day since class on Tuesday. He told me it was a "rock and roll version". Well, as part of his special day, he and his class were able to sing it for us. Check it out. It is clearly a favorite for him :)

Humpty Dumpty from mslevang on Vimeo.

Finally, we were also invited to bring in one of T's favorite stories and read it to the class before the end of their day. T chose "The Snowy Day" by Ezra Jack Keats. It is one of his current favorites. He proudly showed the pictures to his friends while Michael read the story to the kids. It was great! And to end the day, T got to pick which good-bye song the group sang. I think it usually goes something like, "Our hands wave good-bye our friends. Our hands wave good-bye to our friends....." but because it was his special day, he got to make it silly and pick out which body parts were going to wave good-bye. I believe we sang the song four times with the following parts, as chosen by T, featured: Our hair waved good-bye, our feet waved good-bye, our tongues waved good-bye (this was a group favorite) and our heads waved good-bye.

It really was a SPECIAL day!