First Week of 1st and 3rd Grade

 

OK, I guess I should have written this post on Monday, which was the first day of school, but I wanted to wait to tell you about the entire week.  Besides, Monday did not go well for one little pumpkin so I wanted her to have the whole week for school to redeem itself!

Megan, Will and I went to visit their classrooms and school the Friday before school started.  We started with Will's teacher.  Her name is Mrs. Hagaman and she seems to be very nice.  Her room is done in an Arkansas Razorback theme.  Will has the first seat when you come in the door.  He liked his room and was really excited to find out they might get to use an iPod in some of their class work. 

Megan's classroom is in the older part of the school.  I really like old school buildings.  Anyway, her teacher is Mrs. Wilson and she is really nice too.  Mrs. Wilson had zebra print name tags and pencils for everone.  Megan like that!  She was also excited to see the boxes of chapter books in her classroom and books on history and science.  She loves those subjects.  She was also excited to learn that each student gets an iPod touch for class.  I think that is pretty exciting myself.

Both children will get to go to Art, Music, Computer, Library, and PE.  They also have recess each day after lunch.  The Art room is awesome!  Megan was so excited to see the different colored paper and posters of various artists around the room.  Will liked the computer room.  The computer teacher is a really nice lady that goes to our church.  Both of them were excited to see a friendly face.  We also visited the library.  The library is filled with futons, comfy pillows and chairs in bright colors. Both children thought that was awesome!  There were also a large assortment of books to check out too.  Overall the whole morning was good.  After walking around the school both children felt comfortable and not as nervous about starting in such a big place.

Monday morning started pretty well.  I was told to make sure I got at school about 15 minutes before 7:50, which is when playtime on the playground ends.  Traffic was horrible!  This place needs a traffic engineer to design something!  There is not a specific drop off lane, you just drop-off in the middle of the street.  You do have the option of parallel parking next to the side walk on either side of the road, but it will take you at least  5 - 10 minutes to get back into traffic.  All of the students get to play on the playground until the bell rings, around 8:00 am.  I was, and still am, nervous about that many kids with such a big age range playing together.  Let me give you a general idea:  the new school is grades 1 -3.  Each grade has about 10 classes of 20-25 students in it.  All students go to the playground before school  starts.  They do have teachers stationed on the playground to watch everyone and I guess if you grew up with that it is fine, but my two did not.  They are used to going straight to their class each morning and knowing each child in the class.  Megan had three classes per grade with 20 students.  Will just finished his one kindergarten class with 16 students.    Oh, I also did not get to walk them to their rooms.  Teachers were stationed at the doors not allowing parents to come in.  Thankfully, another sweet lady from church saw Will and made sure he made it to his class, although she said that he already knew where he was going.  Megan was fine walking to her class, such a big third grader!

That afternoon, I picked them both up from school and discovered that Megan had a horrible day.  She wanted to go back to OP.  The lunch ladies yelled at her because she didn't know which way to sit, which come to find out they yell at everyone.  She now calls lunch, lunch prison.  She also didn't know some of the rules of class, which everyone doesn't know on the first day of school.  Sometimes I forget that she has too many expectations for herself.  She did make a friend with a little girl.  The girl said that she would show Megan around and help her out with some of the rules.  By the end of the week Megan has two friends.  The first is the little girl from the first day and a little boy.  Both Megan and the little boy bring their lunch and get to sit down first.  He also told the class that he had an imaginery friend.  Everyone laughed at him, but Megan.  She came up to him and told him that she had an imaginery friend too!  She said that he smiled and felt better.  Megan is so sweet and caring even being new she thinks of others.

Will is Will.  Very stoic.  He liked his teacher reading books in class.  He did tell me some of the books that they read.  We have actually read several of the same ones!  He did make a friend about mid-week.  I asked him what their name was and he said he couldn't remember.  He told me that she said she liked his picture of a ninja and she had a green hair bow like Megan wears.  There was also another little girl that likes Lego Ninjago cartoons.  Such a ladies man! He was really excited to make a friend though.  Will does like to go on the playground before school starts.  He reminds me to leave early enough for him to play.

This is a new week of school so I look forward to homework and maybe a few more friends.  Everything takes time but I know both children will know their classmates by Halloween.  Wish us luck!