That’s it, 4 weeks of summer school is over. Peter loved it as much on the first day as on the last day. He was so proud of all the work/projects he completed. From what I could tell, the class focused mostly on what he already covered in preschool. I guess he’ll learn soon enough that school will never be this easy again. Just 5 weeks until official Kindergarten starts.
As for dealing with the school schedule, the early wake-up time for me (and Peter) began to take it’s toll during the last 2 weeks of school. I started having a really hard time getting Peter to just eat breakfast in the morning. He would just sit on the couch and say he wasn’t hungry. I eventually had Mike take a later train into work so he could solely focus on getting Peter to eat breakfast while I got ready.
By mid-week, I started to drag myself. I’m not a morning person, no matter how many hours of sleep I get. So waking up an hour earlier (at 6:45am) slowly drained my energy level and every night I would go to bed a little earlier - by Thursday I was in bed before 10pm. Shocking! I guess this is my life for the next 13 years. Sigh. Well I don’t have to think about that for the next few weeks at least. Our earliest summer class starts at 9:30. Yay!
Peter is attending a month-long class for incoming kindergartners. The class is held at what will be his elementary school. It’s not a mandatory class but I thought it would be good for him to get familiar with the school - and the schedule. He goes every day from 8:15-noon. I thought it would be really tough getting up an hour earlier in the morning but it really hasn’t been bad. Peter even gets to see Mike now before he leaves for work. And if Peter eats breakfast quick enough, Mike will brush his teeth. For some reason, Peter really enjoys that so it forces him to eat breakfast - one less thing for me to fight him on. We also walk to school with our neighbors so that always excites Peter. Unfortunately, they are in another class but Jacob got into Peter’s class (Nicholas attends the class at a different school). Peter thinks summer school is the best thing ever. He is so happy before and after school so I hope his excitement for school continues - FOREVER!
The class:
He even has a cubby:
Heading to class with Jacob:
They look so cute with their little backpacks:
Heading home after celebrating July 4th with a parade:
Also, I did find out Peter got morning Kindergarten so I’m happy about that.
We recently attended a parents and kids orientation at Peter’s soon-to-be Elementary school. They broke up the event by last name so we couldn’t attend with the neighbor twins. Peter was very nervous to go because he knew he wouldn’t know any of the kids. I knew they would be separating the parents from the kids so I was a little worried Peter would become super shy. Well while waiting for it to begin we ran into a boy, Dylan, that we knew from a mutual friend. We’ve only seen him yearly at our mutual friend’s birthday party but luckily Peter still remembered him. The boys got to play on the playground together until the bell sounded for them to line up. Peter easily walked away from us to go into the classroom with Dylan and all the other kids.
The parents were then led into the cafeteria for a 45min presentation. They first showed us a slideshow of school pictures with the “We’re Going To Be Friends” song playing in the background. They just had to pick THAT song. I’m blaming THAT song because about half-way through the slideshow, a rush of emotion ran over me and I could feel myself start to tear up. I had to quickly focus on a speck of dirt on the floor to keep my emotions in check. I felt so silly for getting emotional.
So anyway the rest of the presentation was fine, boring really. But there was one thing that really annoyed me. The speakers kept telling us to “bring your checkbooks on the first day and be prepared to write a lot of checks.” The money is for the various school funds, committees, and organziations. It sounds like it will total about $300, which isn’t bad compared to preschool costs but I just found it kinda rude how they were mentioning it over and over again.
I found out one reason for the money is that our State doesn’t cover a lot of things - one being pencils. It’s ridiculous that our public schools don’t get funds to cover something so basic and I would think a necessity. The other things they don’t cover: Music, Art (including all supplies), library (they don’t pay for the librarian, we do), and Physical Education. Maybe that is one reason why we have an obesity epidemic. Just knowing all this makes me not want to attend public schools. I really feel sorry for the low-income areas where parents don’t have $300 to put toward their kid’s education.
I also found out that even though most of the schools in our district have extended Kindergarten to 5hrs/day (from 3hrs). Our school decided not to do that, instead offering the normal AM/PM classes. In order to offer more time for lessons, our school has limited recess/snack time to only 15mins. Only 15mins, why bother at all.
Although I sound annoyed with our school already, I’m actually very excited that Peter at least knows a few kids so hopefully that will make it a smooth transition. And after the orientation, Peter excitedly told us that there was a Jacob AND a Nicholas in the class. I wonder if they can live up to his expectations.
I had a parent/teacher meeting recently about Peter’s progress in preschool. They evaluated him to see if he is ready for Kindergarten next year. He passed! Of course I was going to send him regardless since I already held him back a year. He still has some weaknesses like writing lowercase letters and mixing uppercase and lowercase letters within a word. We still have 6 months until Kindergarten starts so hopefully he’ll have it down by then.
I officially registered him for Kindergarten last week. What a pain filling out all those forms! You’d think he was buying a house. When I was handing in our forms, Peter was with me and he grabbed a sticky note and pen from the counter and wrote his first, middle and last name and handed it to the lady. Ha! If only it was that simple.
A lot of the schools in our district have lotteries for enrollment but thankfully our school isn’t one of them…maybe that is a bad sign. Well anyway I’m hoping Peter gets into the morning class (instead of afternoon) but we won’t know until June. The morning class will start at 8:20am so I’m not looking forward to waking up even earlier. Other than that I think I’m more excited about Kindergarten than Peter. Peter’s attitude is more like ‘it’s all good.’
Meanwhile…back in Preschool, Peter is now taking his first art class once a week. He stays at school for lunch and then I pick him up after art class finishes in the afternoon. He’s doing pretty good in the class. I’m surprised he will sit still and concentrate for the 45mins.
First drawing of a bird eating a worm:
Peter is enjoying eating lunch at school even if it’s just one day a week. I’m enjoying the extra 2hrs it gives me. It does feel weird having him gone for 5hrs though.
One thing his Preschool hasn’t been preparing him for Kindergarten is reading. So I’m starting to teach Peter to read. I guess I should’ve done it sooner but I didn’t want to frustrate him. He’s been able to read words here and there on his own so I’m just pushing it a little further. He’s doing pretty good so far with basic rhyming words. I guess maybe that is how you’re supposed to learn anyway. Hopefully he’ll improve his reading skills as well within the next 6 months.
