As soon as we seriously started talking about moving down to Boulder, I started to worry about daycare for Calvin. I’ve been happy with the daycare Calvin was in up in Longmont and dreaded going about finding a new one. We toured several last fall and eventually picked one that seemed to be most inline with our beliefs of what preschool should (or, more specifically, shouldn’t) look like.

Calvin’s last day at the Longmont daycare was on Friday. Immediately after I picked Calvin up, we traveled down to Boulder for us to meet his new teachers. A little to my surprise, Calvin was very excited to explore the new preschool. He jauntily walked in and immediately started playing with a set of cars they had prominently displayed on the table (which eventually also included trains and lincoln logs). Jaeger and I were given the basics of the classroom philosophy as well as the general schedule it follows. Everything at this preschool is very child-centered. As far as I can tell, this means they watch the children to find out their interests and then work to build the curriculum around it. After we met with the teachers, we went to a class party, held in a nearby playground, and met several of the other parents and kids.

The preschool visit went very well but I was worried that when I actually went to drop off Calvin at preschool, it would be different. Today was Calvin’s first day and I went with the intention of staying as long as it took to get him comfortable in the classroom. Calvin still seemed pretty excited by the idea of going to the new preschool. When we arrived, the halls were bustling and Calvin seemed a little more reserved than he had been Friday when it had been much quieter. He held on tightly to my finger as we walked in to the classroom. One of the teachers came to greet us and then Calvin wandered around the room pulling me after him. He found a little nook that had benches surrounding an area with more cars. This immediately grabbed his attention and he sat down and started playing. After a little bit, one of the other kids asked if they could go outside and the teacher responded they could if some “friends” wanted to come also. At Calvin’s old daycare they had set outside times but it appears here the kids can go outside anytime as long as they convince enough of their classmates to come that one of the two classroom teachers can go outside while still keeping the required student/teacher ratio. Once outside Calvin seemed completely oblivious to me so I told him I was going and he somewhat distractedly told me ok.

Mondays are technically my day off so I went home with the plan to work on some stuff around the house. However, I got distracted by a work emergency and didn’t get nearly as much done as I was hoping. I went to pick Calvin up and found him sleeping. Calvin rarely takes naps these days but I wasn’t terribly surprised because he seems to regress and nap more whenever he changed rooms at his old daycare.

All in all, I’m very pleased with Calvin’s new preschool. I think he’s going to have a lot of fun there.