We Made It

We've been MIA lately, totally my fault, but wanted to announce that we made it. The kids absolutely LOVE school, their teachers, their friends, everything!!! Getting up hasn't been an issue at all, now staying focused on getting ready for school in order to get out the door on time is another story. :)

I have still been walking the kids to their classrooms in the morning, but stay in the "neighborhood" connecting the kinder classrooms rather than walking in and being the helicopter parent I've had the pleasure of experiencing as a teacher in the past.

My school days have been seriously hectic, so I haven't had a chance to really "see" the kids at all like I did that first day. Thankfully, our school is one giant family, so I have a lot of friends filling me in on cute things they see/hear the kids doing/saying during the school day.

Little Miss A and Mr. D come to my classroom after the bell and I have been experimenting with activities that keep them engaged in a non-distracting way without completely destroying the room.

I love hearing the kids talk at the end of the day. We "popcorn share" our afternoons so each of them have a chance to say what they want to say and yet still get to respond to what the other one has to say as well. I love hearing them talk together and comparing their experiences.

D: "Ms. A read us a story in class today and we made monster puppets."
A: "Really? We did too! What was your story about?"

After swapping story fragments that stuck out to them, they decided it was actually the same story. I could tell by their expressions at this discovery that they both thought it was pretty cool that they did the same thing in their own classes with their own teachers and classmates.

Hearing about their "specials" classes is fun too. Little Miss A alternates between music/theatre and PE while Mr. D rotates through PE and art. They are in opposite rotations, so they don't even have PE together, which I think is nice. One afternoon Little Miss A was explaining the PE game they played that day called "catch the shark." As I was asking how it was played, they both chimed in with details and were so excited, again, that they were in fact doing the same activities in school without one another knowing. :)

They are definitely getting to be their own individuals and are establishing their own unique set of friends and experiences. They do still share recess and it sounds like they interact quite a lot on the playground. Mr.D and his friend A have been chasing Little Miss A and her friend T almost everyday. The boys think this is all great fun, but I am still trying to determine (from the girls perspective) if this is okay or not. Some days it seems to be totally fine, while others it's definitely not with Little Miss A breaking into tears recounting the events. Of course from a boys perspective, this is entirely way too confusing, so they have no idea if the girls want to be chased or not. I guess we need to come up with some type of code for Little Miss A to communicate with Mr. D to let him know she's had enough and to stop. Let the gender confusion begin!