first day of school

The boys headed back to school yesterday! Yee-haw! It's hard to believe I have 3 kids in school this year. Even though they would never admit it, I think they were "ready" to go back and even excited about a new year. Jared is in sixth grade, Ryan is in fourth grade, and Jacob is in kindergarten. The kindergarteners went to school for all of one hour yesterday...with a parent. My neighbor took Matthew for me so I could focus on Jacob -- it was good for both of us. The kindergarten hour consisted of getting acquainted with the classroom, bathroom, coat/backpack hooks, library, and office. Each child drew a self portrait, got to read with their parent and then finally gathered on the floor so the teacher could talk to them for a minute and read a story. We also signed up for a time during the week for an assessment. We were home by 10:00 a.m. Jacob only goes to school this week for his 1/2 hour assessment, which is tomorrow. He will start going to school everyday after Labor Day.

Now for my mini-soapbox: I hate that the kindergarteners get all excited to go to school and they show up for the first day only to be there for an hour, with a parent, and then to top it off, don't get to go back for another week! Doing an academic assessment is fine with me, but could we just postpone their real "first day" of school until after Labor Day so that they get to go everyday after that? They are excited to go to school, so let them! And their first day should last long enough to be a "real" day -- none of this silly one hour with a parent stuff! OK, I enjoyed spending that hour with Jacob, but in all reality, it just wasn't necessary!! I think the teacher could show the kids all together around the classroom and school and the kids were fine to be there without a parent -- good grief, most every kid goes to preschool for a year or two before kindergarten anyway and is accustomed to not having a parent with them during school time!

My other soapbox: The first day of school our principal has everyone meet at the front of the school outside for a Pledge of Allegiance and singing the national anthem. Then the kids are told to go around to the back of the school to walk a lap around the track while their teachers go to their classrooms and get ready to greet the kids. This is all silliness in my opinion. When we're outside we can't hear the principal speaking or leading the pledge because there is too much traffic noise on Main street and too many people gathered around. It's complete chaos to get everyone going around to the back of the school and walking the track. The kids just want to get to their new classrooms and the teachers have been preparing to greet students for a week or more. I say, just go to class!