Tuesday, August 20, 2013

School!! School!!

It came!! It finally came!! Look, if I'm going to live without pretending, I could not WAIT for the first day of school and six hours of freedom from the kids five days a week!!

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Lia got to start kindergarten this year!! This is something we weren't sure would happen until just days before the first day of school. We had been petitioning the district and the filling out paper work to try to convince them that Lia was just SO ready for kindergarten and the arbitrary age cut off for this year (she missed it by just a few weeks) was just that -- arbitrary. Many many people tried to talk us out of sending her this year with (somewhat) valid arguments. But honestly, she's only the youngest in her class by a few weeks and she's lightyears ahead of many of her classmates in terms of what she knows and her emotional maturity. We had her signed up for Transitional Kindergarten, which, in this school district, was just a complete joke. It was at an elementary school that was the farthest away from where we lived. It was for 3 1/2 hours for four days a week. Paying for another year of Pre-K was just not an option and not something we thought was even worth it. So we fought hard to get her in.

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A few days before school started they finally tested her readiness. It was a JOKE! And even Lia thought it was pretty lame!! Basically, the transitional kindergarten teacher asked her to name the letters of the alphabet, the numbers up to 10, shapes and colors. That.WAS.IT. At one point, half way through the questions, Lia said to the teacher "This is so boring!!" This is when we learned Lia's default when she is nervous is to be sassy. I'm not kidding. She even admitted it herself and felt bad about being sassy during the testing and apologized. Funny girl! So whether it was that they just felt she was ready or the teacher saw her sass and decided she did not want to deal with that for the year, they called the next day and said she was IN! They tested all of the TK kids and Lia was the only one they let go up to Kindergarten. And it has been a GREAT decision. Lia is absolutely blooming in kindergarten!!

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Her teacher is Mr. Rose (who, by the way, was the sixth grade teacher of a few of my friends!) and he's great. I was so glad she got a male teacher! She loves men. She's made lots of friends and is just learning and soaking it all up. She loves homework!

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Max, our smart and quirky boy, had a little bit of a rough start to first grade, though. I think the transition to having my mom here all summer spoiling him and undermining me a bit to having her gone and suddenly having to start school with rules and follow through was really hard for him. Especially because he got a split contract class -- meaning he has two teachers that alternate days. But, after instituting some stricter rules and schedules at home, he's doing AWESOME now. I was (and still am a little) worried that having two teachers and therefore constant change in the schedule would be really hard for him (Max's OCD tendencies are better kept in check and he is happier with the stricter schedule, when he can fully predict what his day will be) but he's doing really well with that, too. His reading is off the charts and just doing so well! His teachers, Mrs. Browne and Mrs. Dennis are sensitive to what makes him happy and makes him feel comfortable and are willing to put in the work to help him.

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And, somehow I was roped in to being the art teacher in Max's class! Another mom and I take turns teaching art lessons for an hour on Fridays. It's kind of crazy! It makes me wonder if maybe I would have liked being a full time art teacher. I think maybe yes! I also volunteer 1-2 days a week in Lia's class (so my 6 hours a day 5 days a week have slowly dwindled down). Being in Kindergarten is pretty eye opening -- I'm not sure how Mr. Rose stays sane but he's a great teacher!!

I'm loving having the kids at school and the routines and everything. It reminds me about how much I loved school when I was a kid. This is going to be a great school year!

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