school days

Riley and Hailey had their first day of 1st grade (!!) and kindergarten (!!) yesterday.  Elliot started 2 hrs, two mornings a week preschool today (!).  Mommy is certainly excited, and thrilled that the kids are all enjoying themselves so much right off the bat :)

Riley summed up his first day with a very enthusiastic "awesome!!!"  His new teacher's name is Ms. Mangos and she seems nice.  He has several kids in this class that he is friendly with from last year, and will probably be friends with a few more by the end of the week.  His favorite part of the first day was recess, because they get to be on the "big apparatus" all week.  They don't have assigned seats yet, guess the teacher is shuffling them around to find the best spot for each of them.  He explained how there were several tables, one with the teacher for those who need the most help, and that they wanted to be at the one that would challenge them.  No homework yet, but now he'll be getting 30-35 minutes a day Mon-Thu plus 20 minutes of reading each day.  He enjoys being the older brother who already knows how everything works too, and mostly he's very kindly about explaining it to Hailey :)

Hailey's first day went very well too, which didn't surprise us considering she started her first day all smiles and confidence and not a tear was shed!  She has the same teachers and classroom as Riley did last year, which helped her feel right at home.  She's been full of stories of her first day and the kids in her class.  Her first friend "Jetson" (most likely "Jackson") and her played on the playground equipment together, though she sternly informed me that they were not allowed to climb (up the slide evidently).  She also befriended a girl "Mimi" (probably "Mia") who "has blond hair like me, and like Katie with the red hair!"  (For laughs, I don't think there's another kid with light hair in her class, never mind strawberry blond :)  She had some trouble with lunch the first day, not understanding yet how the buy-lunch thing worked, and then not having enough time to eat it once purchased on credit (the $1 was in her bag)  But she didn't cry or get mad, just explains it with disappointment in her voice.  This is part of why we think she'll be great at kindergarten regardless of how easily the academic stuff comes to her.  She's a smart cookie and very outgoing, but has gotta be one of the youngest in her class considering that she doesn't turn five for another 6 weeks.  She'll get 15 minutes of homework reinforcing that day's lesson plus 20 minutes of reading/being read to.

Elliot (walking along to drop R + H off for first day, and carrying his lunchbox to be just like the big kids) is loving having mommy all to himself, but also did better than expected for his first time at preschool this morning.  I worried that he would be very clingy and crying a great deal when I tried to leave, since he was so slow to warm up to new people and situations this summer and complained at the idea of school.  But after a few minutes of shyness he was doing the worksheets and projects, smiling and cooperative.  It probably helps that his teacher is the same one Riley and Hailey had for preschool and he's been in the classroom many times when I volunteered.  He loves going to the playground and on errands with mommy, and is so much chattier and funnier when he gets one-on-one time.


Luckily I wrote the above before school let out the second day.  Another time I'll write about the disaster that was the first day of homework. *sigh*