The Kindergartner!

Today is Rory's first day of elementary school as a kindergartner! He couldn't wait to start yesterday and this morning he didn't want to get out of bed. But we finally coaxed him out, he ate a breakfast of Gorilla Munch cereal that he picked out himself, and was excited to wear his new shoes - they have Spiderman, Wolverine and Iron Man on them and they light up when he walks.

Aug 9, 2009

Matt dropped us off to take Myer to preschool, while I went inside to get Rory settled. What a zoo! Parents, kids and stuff. Lots of stuff - the supply list included 2 reams of copy paper, 2 boxes of wipes and Kleenex, hand soap, hand sanitizer, plus the usual crayons, glue, etc.

From 8-8:20 it's reading time, and the parents are encouraged to stay to read to their child. Rory picked out The Grouchy Ladybug, I Didn't Know That (amazing weather facts), and a cute little story about creatures in the swamp whose title I forget but culminates with the mosquito biting the ravenous lion. At 8:05 we stood for the pledge of allegiance - Rory says "Mommy, why is everyone standing?" And then parents were excused after the good morning song.

The kids in the class are very diverse - quite a few military families and about evenly divided among ethnicities. I didn't realize that Bay View has the highest percentage of children who walk to school (meaning the school and the district save $$ on busing). I like that most children might potentially be within walking distance from our home making it easy to meet up with after school or on weekends. But making new friends comes first, and I know Rory will not have a hard time doing that.

Rory's teacher is Ms. Kylander; we weren't impressed with her at the open house and were actually kind of panicking - she had a hard time speaking and relating to the adults - but seemed more authoritative this morning. The classroom is nice and big, and the students will have lots of interaction with the other two kindergarten class and teacher that we do like a lot, Miss Gneibus. Rory knows a first grader, Kieran, who lives down the street from us, and Nate in the other class knows Ardan from gymnastics, which Rory will also be starting tomorrow. The class size was (thankfully?) kept to 25 for kindergarten.

We had a fun-filled weekend - Matt and Rory went to see the Salinas Air Show with Ardan, Seamus, Dave and little Ryan. He got lots of pictures of the planes, not so much of the kids though. :)

Weekend Fun