GA Pre-K

Today was Tessa's 1st day in GA Pre-K. The school she has been attending since she was 4 months old, West Cobb Prep Academy, offers both Private Pre-K and GA Pre-K. We went back and forth and ultimately decided on GA Pre-K (aka free) since we are planning on sending her to public Kindergarten anyways. I've had my doubts about this decision, but she's very bright and adapts to any situation with ease.

On Friday we met her teacher, Ms Raquel and learned that her class is one of the three classes that is part of a Georgia program that has foreign students as Assistant Teachers and they are immersed in the language throughout the day. Tessa's Assistant Teacher is Ms An Chi and she is teaching Mandarin. Tessa has already had some Mandarin with Ms Lee in her previous classes, but those were the 1-hr type classes. I'm really interested to see how much Mandarin Tessa will be speaking here. I might have to learn some myself since I know ZILCH about Mandarin. Also, the way the program works is that West Cobb families who have been in the daycare have 1st choice of the GA Pre-K slots, after that it's lottery driven for the local families. That being said, Tessa will also have some excellent Spanish skills, which is another great plus.

The other piece of good news was that when talking to one of Tessa's teachers on Friday, she had asked who Tessa got and I told her it was Ms Raquel and she said that she is by far the best one over there (there are 7 GA Pre-K classes vs the two Private School ones). She said all of the staff members that have kids all want her and all of the kids really like her. That bit of information, combined with actually meeting Ms Raquel made me feel a lot better about our decision. We'll probably have to do some practicing at home as well to keep her challenged since she seems to master stuff fairly quickly anyways.

I'm so excited to see what this year brings for big T and I'm so proud of my little booger butt.