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Incredibly, three years have past and Maile has finished preschool and in the fall will head to Kindergarten.

When she started on August 8th, 2011, this was our little girl…

Maile Girl - all ready for her first day of school!

And yesterday…

And now, this is our preschool graduate!

I can’t say enough about the experience we’ve had over the past three years at Presidio Knolls – Maile has certainly blossomed in all types of exciting ways from her artistic ability to her language (both English and Chinese) to her interactions with her friends … but the best part of all was the love that Maile developed for school and that she received back from her teachers. Maile ran into her classroom almost every day – more than anything else that is what we were hoping for from her preschool experience and it was delivered in spades.

Yesterday’s end of year/graduation ceremony also showed how well the teachers know Maile and her classmates – their strengths, their quirks, the little things that make them tick. After welcoming us and singing some songs, the teachers shared a personal message for each student and gave them their diploma. For Maile, Ruth LaoShi said:

Your artistic talent continues to thrive. Whatever we make in class, you add more embellishment and take it to the next level. You take your job seriously and responsibly. You take care of others around you. When we get together to work on projects, you take the initiative to start conversations and ideas. You gather the group up to make decisions together. Thank you for being you and for your leadership.

I think that captures Maile at almost 5 quite nicely – it leaves out some aspects of her personality – along with those strengths are the challenges of patience, sharing and just enough selfishness to drive you bonkers sometimes. But a lot of that is just a 5 year old little girl learning her way in the world. Ruth shared with me later that Maile really challenges you – she pushes you to be on the top of your game because most of the time she can keep up. I agree. And most of the time it is wonderful to be a participant in those challenges … most of the time 😉

Maile receiving her diploma from her lao shis: Shu-ying, Ruth and Fei

Maile singing along with all her friends...

Are they talking about me?

Here’s a bit from the beginning of the ceremony – they stood up one line at a time and said some words in Chinese and English and then sang a song in Chinese.

One more note about Ruth – at PKS they break the classes down into smaller groups. Most of the time they do things together as a full class, but they do more focused projects with their smaller teams of 5-6 kids and that teacher really spends a lot of time with then. Ruth was Maile’s team lead for most of the past three years. She’s an incredible teacher and we know she’s one we will always remember.

Maile and Ruth Lao Shi

Three years ago, I ended that post about Maile’s first day of school with this picture and caption:

I have a feeling we'll be chasing her from here on out...

I was right.

She's getting faster...

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