August 2009 - includes photos of Austin wearing his new glasses
Austin's First day of Kindergarten
Here's some of the 1st day of school photos:
This is what I wrote somewhere else about his first day of school:
First day of kindergarten went relatively smoothly. I helped with the morning yesterday, but other than Amy's alarm clock not going off it went off without any hitches. Austin was so excited that he was pretty cooperative, and Jonas and Devon both are already used to going out the door every morning--just not quite so early. While we were driving out of the neighborhood we noticed the bus makes a stop at the end of our street, and a TON of kids get on there every day, so we started thinking maybe we'd put him on the bus after all. We got to the school without a problem, got him to class fine. We actually had to chase him down to say bye, so separation anxiety was (as expected) not a problem. :) We stayed a bit longer for a PTA-sponsored breakfast then headed home.
The afternoon was a bit rougher--Amy said she sat in the car pickup line for almost an hour, which is pretty ridiculous even given it was the first day. That was exacerbated by Devon's screaming (he hates stopped cars) and both kids needed diaper changes. Then when Austin got in the car he whined all the way home that he was starving because he had only gotten salad for lunch. What?! For about 4 hours we both thought he'd only been *given* a salad for lunch so we were both pretty concerned, but slowly we teased the bigger story out of Austin and it turns out he got a full lunch, but only had time to eat the salad. They only get 20 minutes for lunch and he's a notoriously dawdling eater, so I think the end of lunch caught him by surprise (despite me warning him several times that that would happen). He got several reminders between last night and this morning to eat first, then play.
Austin being in preschool last year has helped in countless ways, even so much as to make it a routine for Jonas to head out the door every morning. All 3 kids seem to be adjusting to the earlier time pretty well--it's not too much earlier as far as waking up, but they have to hustle more to get out the door.
All in all we're happy with the way everything is turning out; there have been no major hang-ups or irritations (other than the hour-long sit in the car rider lane). I feel better about the school now that I've been there a few times and have talked to some other people around town about its quality, too. The worst part for me is that I have to get up at 4:40am now to avoid interfering with Amy's new morning routine. Ugh! But it gets me to work by 6am if not before, which means I can leave before 3pm and have half the afternoon to be at home, run errands, etc. It's not too bad.
That was 2 weeks ago on August 17 or 18. Since then, a lot has happened:
+ Austin went through about 2 weeks of difficult transition. He was crying every morning in class, saying he missed us, telling us he didn't like school, crying at night about going back, etc. I think it was due to a couple things: longer days, a tighter schedule (especially IRT lunch), the bus not being as cool as he originally thought, and so many new faces. A couple days ago he stopped the daily crying and went so far this weekend as to say he was excited about school. Hopefully that'll stick.
+ He also decided that he didn't care for the bus. Despite the bus driver's graciousness and flexibility with routes--she was willing to pick him up and drop him off in our cul-de-sac, if not literally at our driveway--he just couldn't get used to the loud noise, the windows being down all the time, and the bigger kids. He also didn't like not having a seatbelt, as his feet didn't touch the floor so he slid around a lot. That made it seem like the bus was "going too fast" and it really bothered him. After a few more trial days, we went back to car riding. We might try the bus again later this semester or year, but for now we're sticking with the car (as much of a PITA that is for Amy).
+ I went and visited his school last Friday to eat lunch with Austin, to observe, and to talk to the teacher a little bit. I got to do way more than that--she put me to work! I got to read to the class and run a learning center, then had about 15 minutes to talk one-on-one with the teacher during recess. I'm very happy I went--I feel really good about his teacher, how she operates, how she runs the class, and so forth. I also got to see Austin "in action" and was happy to see that he's a good, quiet student who pays attention almost all the time. He isn't particularly outgoing, but has made some friends and plays well at recess either alone or in groups. He keeps telling us he doesn't remember anyone's name but since I've been to his class, I can help him remember. I hope to go back once a month or so, or perhaps alternate visits with Amy. Austin LOVED having me at lunch so I'd like to do that again; I also tremendously enjoyed being in the classroom helping out, and the teacher was eager to have me help as often as I could.
+ His class is 26 kids--not ideal, but less than the 28-30 we were told to expect. There were 2 kids absent the day I went but when I was there, it was 10 boys and 14 girls. The class was about 1/3 minority children.
I think that's all I have to say!
No comments:
Post a Comment