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I wasn't sure what to expect when I arrived for my first day of Michelle Joni's "Preschool Mastermind" preschool for adults. But I was excited — excited enough to take two trains to Brooklyn in the snow and slush, and hobble on a broken toe to experience my first day of school.

Preschool for adults is a five-week experimental class run by Michelle Joni Lapidos and Candice Kilpatrick, known as "Miss Joni" and "Miss CanCan" by their students. Lapidos, who studied early childhood education in college before switching to fashion merchandising, also runs a skipping club for adults inclined to skip through the city while wearing costumes. Kilpatrick has a master's degree in teaching, two children of her own, and has taught preschool, first grade, sixth grade, and university students. The class is a mix of performance art, play time, and self-help, with a goal of introducing play and creativity into the lives of weary adults.

Adult preschool meets from 7 to 10 p.m. on Tuesdays, and each week has a different theme. Week one is the first day of school. Week two includes a slumber party that runs until noon the next day. Week three is "Class Picture Day," which we are supposed to dress our "4-year-old best" for, and Week four is "Field Trip Day," when we will embark on a field trip to a to-be-announced location from 1 to 10 p.m. For the final class, "Parents Day," we can bring two friends (or our actual parents) for a party and an extra-special show-and-tell. Preschool fees start at $333 (a bargain for adult education in New York City), and run on a sliding scale from $333 to $999, with Lapidos encouraging students to determine how much they can afford to pay because "preschool is all about choices." I kicked in $444.

The inaugural adult preschool class consists of 10 students, picked on the basis of our applications (I used plenty of glitter glue on mine) and telephone interviews. When Miss Joni and Miss CanCan told me that they liked my energy and that I was accepted, I was thrilled.

For the first day of class, we were told our homework was to "do our prouds" and write positive, affirming notes to ourselves in crayon and marker when we did a good job or something to be proud of. I wrote Post-its to myself that said, "Good job dressing yourself today!" and, "I'm proud of you for cleaning under the bathroom sink!!" Miss Joni also told us that we should feel free to wear a special outfit for our first day of class and bring an item for our first show-and-tell. So I left work early and changed out of my black skirt suit and into jeans, silver rain boots, a green T-shirt with bunnies on it, and a crown.

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For show-and-tell, I brought a pair of statuesque Jeffrey Campbell shoes with a Black Milk comic strip print on them. As an adult, it's difficult to find a possession that you really want to take out and show people. I briefly considered my new turquoise Le Creuset teapot (which I am seriously excited about) but thought it might just send the message that my life is so boring that I get a thrill out of heating water for tea.

As I traveled to preschool, I felt a bit silly in my crown and silver rain boots, but mostly I was excited to return to a time when everything was fascinating and nothing seemed impossible. I wondered what activities there would be, and what my classmates would be like. I hoped that there would be snacks.

Here is what is like to return to preschool at the age of 33.

6:50 p.m.: I am the first preschooler to arrive. Miss CanCan greets me at the door of Miss Joni's large live-work space in South Park Slope and gives me a rainbow nametag with a shiny pink heart sticker and "Mandar" written on it (we were encouraged to come up with special preschool names for ourselves).

7 p.m.: Preschool begins. I descend a spiral staircase into the room where preschool will be held. On the floor is a mat made of foam puzzle pieces in different colors, each with a number or letter. There is a large canvas accompanied by a silver platter bearing jars of paints, a tub of pink kinetic sand with sandcastle molds, and Play-Doh.

Seemingly every available inch of wall is decorated with bright and strange objects: a shiny black and pink parasol dangles from above, and I spot plenty of Beatles memorabilia, a Bedazzler, a large inflatable zebra wearing lace around his neck, stuffed animals, a tiny wig wearing a cowboy hat, and more glitter than I've ever seen in one place in my life. The lights are dimmed, and I smell incense. Clearly, this is not the sterile preschool of my youth.

Miss Joni greets with me an enthusiastic hug. She has bright Crayola-red hair (and eyebrows) and is wearing a loud yellow tunic, sparkly tights, and a long necklace with large multicolored beads — an accessory rarely seen on non-preschool teachers.

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7:05 p.m.: Preschool begins with "silent playtime." I reach into the pink kinetic sand, and this stuff is amazing. They didn't have this when I was a kid (or I was severely deprived). I use a mold to make a starfish and marvel at the wonders of science.

Next, I move on to the Play-Doh. I grab the blue and yellow, and carefully roll the blue Play-Doh into little balls, and then make a piecrust with the yellow. By the time I've finished making my misshapen blueberry pie, my first classmate has arrived, a petite blonde in her mid-20s.

I join my new friend at the finger paint station, and experiment with mixing and painting with finger paints, squiggling my hands down the canvas. This is fun, feeling the paint on my hands, but I quickly learn that finger paint simply doesn't have the same consistency or potential as real paint. There doesn't seem to be anywhere for me to clean off my hands, so I surreptitiously run my fingers along the edge of the canvas until I've gotten most of the paint off.

Next I turn my attention to the gym mat and cushions on the side of the room. I do a headstand and don't injure myself. So far, so good.

By this time, more of my classmates have begun to filter in. They are mostly female, and all appear to be in their mid-20s to mid-30s. Everyone is dressed casually, mostly in T-shirts and jeans, and I'm glad that I changed out of my suit before coming. Miss Joni is playing music and dancing, and occasionally comes through with a prop, including a small pink unicorn head on a stick, with a mane of green and purple hair and a working jaw, whimsical and terrifying at the same time.

Finally, everyone arrives and we all settle down on the mats and the blue shag carpeting on the floor, and work on making and sharing our Play-Doh creations in silence. I reflect that making pies out of Play-Doh seemed much more complicated and time-consuming when I was 4. I eventually settle onto a gym mat and drowsily stare at the ceiling, wondering if I can sneak in a nap.

7:45 p.m.: The "clean-up conch shell" is sounded, breaking the silence, as we work together to put the Play-Doh back into the correct jars.

7:50 p.m.: Circle time! We gather into a circle and sit cross-legged on the floor. Miss Joni produces an enormous rectangular frame made of bright yellow foamcore (one student asks her where she got it, and she says she thinks she found it in the trash), and we each take turns holding the frame around our face as we introduce ourselves and say why we came to adult preschool and what we are hoping to each achieve. The class has some photographers, some writers, some people with corporate jobs. One woman is a mother. Some of my fellow preschoolers say that they are hoping to tap into stifled creativity or return to a more innocent time. I say I'm there because it sounded fun.

8:05 p.m.: Show-and-tell! It's time for our first show-and-tell. Miss Joni adds an unusual touch here, passing around a pink Hello Kitty electric toothbrush. When it is our turn, we each press a button on the toothbrush and Hello Kitty flashes a pink light for exactly one minute – the time allotted to us for our show-and-tell. One girl lifts her shirt to show us her tattoo. My comic strip shoes are a big hit. I lament that I don't have many places to wear them, and a classmate helpfully suggests that I could wear them while doing laundry.

8:20 p.m.: We get up and stretch, and then we stomp around the room and do our best monster impressions while Miss Joni plays a song about monsters dancing on her laptop. I enjoy the roaring and the line about waving my claws about in the air. I make a mental note to look for the song on iTunes.

8:25 p.m.: Arts and crafts! Miss Joni passes out brightly colored worksheets that ask us to identify something that we wish we could do and something that we are "preternaturally good at." I take a Magic Marker and write, "Exercise," and, "Being creative." For the most part, my classmates want to be more assertive and more punctual.

Next, Miss Joni and Miss CanCan tell us to create a superhero that combines our strengths with what we hope to become better at. I imagine an exercise superhero who's always excited about and having fun with exercise. I draw a stick figure holding little pink barbells and carefully glue pieces of extra fuzzy light blue pipe cleaners to the legs as legwarmers. I look around the room, and everyone else's superheroes look much better than mine. The girl next to me has made an exquisite drawing of woman in a floral skirt with rhinestone accents. I add a string of magenta sequins to my drawing to make a headband and liberally apply purple glitter glue. It helps, but not much. I wonder if I've oversold my strength as "being creative."

We share our superheroes with the group and are told to give our superhero a name. Miss Joni suggests "The Exorcist" and then "Excersister" for my superhero, and I go with "Excersister." For week two, the sleepover class, we are supposed to arrive dressed as our superhero.

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9 p.m.: Based on our superheroes' strengths and weaknesses, we each pair up with another class member, who is now our accountability buddy. We are told to check in every day with our buddy to help each other keep track of our goals. My accountability has just published a book on having fun while losing weight. Perfect.

Each set of buddies is also responsible for planning a preparing a snack for one week of the class. We are supposed to dress up (as our superheroes or otherwise) and go to the grocery store together, document our trip, and plan snacks along a theme. Miss Joni and Miss Cancan prepared the snacks for this week's class, and they show us a slideshow of their trip to the grocery store. Miss Joni appears to be wearing a yellow superhero mask around her eyes.

9:15 p.m. SNACK TIME!! This is totally what I signed up for. We are served milk (regular, chocolate, and almond) and cookies sprinkled with yellow sugar. There is one tray of baked cookies and one tray of raw cookies. I sample the raw cookies, hoping it's an egg-free recipe that won't give me salmonella poisoning. They are delicious.

9:30 p.m.: Nap time! Second only to snack time in my book. We lie on gym mats, and Miss Joni and Miss CanCan place blankets on top of us. Miss Joni reads a quote from Edgar Allan Poe and gives us yoga relaxation instructions during naptime. I don't fall asleep, and I feel a little weird curled up on the floor next to people I've just met, but I appreciate the opportunity to rest my eyes before heading out into the cold to go home.

9:45 p.m.: We are woken up with music. Miss Joni encourages us to sing along as she hands out a pill to each of us. On closer inspection, my pill has a little smiley face printed on the capsule. We are told to open the pills, and inside is a tiny scroll of paper inside a gold ring. Miss Joni instructs us to write what we want the pills to do on the scroll of paper, then put the pill back together, and put it in a little glass bottle with cork stopper, which she encourages us to decorate. This is definitely a new one for me. I write as many areas of improvement (exercise, eat healthy, be on time, get organized) as I can fit onto the tiny scroll, and then seal it up and toss some blue glitter in my glass bottle. We also receive invitations to fill out and hand to our guests for Parents Day.

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10 p.m.: I pack up my pill in a glass bottle, my superhero and snack planning worksheets, and my invitations to Parents Day and head out into the night. I'm not quite sure what just happened, but I'm definitely looking forward to the slumber party next week, and planning on doing at least a few leg lifts in the morning in case my accountability buddy checks to see if I've exercised.

For the most part, adult preschool was what I expected. The self-help and goal-setting aspects were new, but welcome. I can use all the help I can get in making it to the gym, even if it means creating a superhero to get me there. I'm looking forward to seeing whether the preschool experience changes me over the next month, and I'm excited to see where Miss Joni and Miss CanCan take us on our class field trip. Mostly though, I'm excited about the snacks.