Weekend with Fuzzy

Emma has an AWESOME kindergarten teacher this year. Her name is Mrs. Fay. 

Mrs. Fay teaches the children in her class about new concepts and ideas in creative ways. Often her buddy Rascal the Raccoon helps the class understand rules (usually by breaking them and getting corrected). Rascal is a good student most of the time, but the kindergartners are there to help him out when he is having trouble. In doing so, they learn correct behavior themselves. Here is Emma with Rascal and Mrs. Fay at the open house before the school year started. 

Mrs. Fay uses other animals in her classroom as well. Elmer the Elephant helped when they learned about pumpkins; there was a newspaper clipping showing how elephants at the zoo love stomping pumpkins, so the kids had to keep Elmer away from their class pumpkins until they had time to discuss the different parts of the pumpkin. Eventually sneaky Elmer ended up smashing some, but then they got to look inside so I guess that wasn't all bad. 

I volunteer on Mondays, and when it was time to introduce the spider unit, the class carpet was FILLED with HUGE spiders. The kids got to do research and Emma proudly explained to me later that spiders have 8 legs, which are attached not to their abdomen, but to the cephalothorax. Cephalo...what? My 5 year old knows way more about spiders than I do. 

Emma LOVES the class animals, so she was quite thrilled when her turn came to take Fuzzy home for the weekend. He comes with a backpack, pajamas, bedtime story, blanket, and a journal where Emma got to write about the adventures they had together.

Fuzzy came with us to Cafe Rio.

Then he joined us for an outing to Nielsen's Frozen Custard in Vienna.

We had to see how the VA branch compares to the one by Gpa B in Utah.

Fuzzy even became a snuggly nighttime friend for Emma, who wanted to be sure he had a comfy place to sleep. Have I mentioned how much I love this caring little kindergartner?