7 days until court....do I hear a drum roll?...oh, that's just my nerves

Big day today for our family as Anna graduates from the Parents as Teachers (P.A.T.) program and gets ready to start kindergarten. Parents as Teachers is a tremendous program that is made possible through local empowerment funds, with no family income level qualifiers. It's free for children from birth to kindergarten. It also tests kids periodically to see how they're doing based on the Denver Learning test (that's probably not the right name of the test, but it's close).

Every other week a professionally trained staff person comes into our home to work with Anna through play. Our person is Kristie O. and she's amazing. Luke was also in the program and he had a great experience as well.

Kristie teaches learning concepts through play. The list of things that we've done is endless but a few examples are making our own play dough, painting with shaving cream, walking on balance blocks outside, placing pegs in the right shaped openings and so on. Kristie finishes up each hour-long session with reading a book that ties into the 'play' work that we just did.

I love P.A.T. because I'm not very creative. I love to play, but need help especially in the craft area. It's much easier for me to read books to the kids. One of the goals of the program is to help parents (both the mom and dad) learn how to play with your kids while teaching them critical concepts..

Each month the program has an event where all families are invited to come in to a large group activity. Last month Eric did a pizza throwing party. He loves doing these with kids. I believe there were approx. 37 kids and 30 adults. He started by throwing the dough in the air and trying to get it 6 feet wide. I'm not sure if he made it to 6 feet, but the kids sure thought he was great. He made bracelets, watches, necklaces, Superman capes, and ghosts out of the dough and then had all of the kids come up to tables and pound dough. The cornmeal was flying all over the gym. We warned the P.A.T. gals that we'd be making a mess. ha Then we capped off the evening by me reading pizza books to the families and serving 14 pizzas. It was a blast!!

So, tonight is Anna's graduation night. When Luke went through graduation the ceremony consisted of a slide show of the kids in the program, cake, diplomas and the Lockhart favorite--the graduation cap. Luke kept his cap and diploma on his dresser forever as they were cherished items. The grandparents are invited too so I'm sure they'll love it.