Back to School Night

So this past Tuesday was Back to School Night. Basically the principle addressed the parents and talked about the typical stuff – how to join the PTA, if you want to chaperone a field trip starting this year you must be fingerprinted, etc. Kind of makes you wonder why they started fingerprinting this year – did something happen last year?

Anywoo, then we got to go to Liam’s class room and his teacher, Mrs. Hord, explained stuff to us. Also, the kids weren’t at this little meeting. So Greg and I sit in the teeny, tiny chairs and start looking around before the ‘talk’ begins. Liam’s class is the frogs. So there is a bulletin board with frog cutouts and a picture of each kid on the face of the frog – very cute. Mrs. Hord also made the most delicious lemon cookies. I think between Greg and I we ate a half dozen.

Transitional kindergarten was explained in more detail. Basically it’s a smaller class size and has a dedicated teacher’s aid, so the ratio is 10 to 1. They start the class off slow and by December they have a good idea about where kids are, so in January they divide them up into four groups based on how well they are reading. The best readers go to a more advanced reading group for an hour a day and the ones still having problems stay with Mrs. Hord for the hour reading group – the other two groups go to other groups that are appropriate. So starting in January she said that they are basically doing exactly what the other classrooms are doing and everyone is ready for 1st grade by the end of the year. One of the parents asked if any of the kids re-did kindergarten. She said that last year (the first year of this program) three kids did stay back a year, but one of them was because of emotional development.

Oh, Mrs. Hord was a pre-school teacher and has been a kinder teacher for two years. She looks younger than Janelle, so that took some getting use to for me. But she is super nice.

OK, back to the classroom. She has created a chart with four frogs on it and everyone has a clothes pin with their name on it. They start each day on the green frog square. If they are having a super day they get to move to the rainbow frog square. Not such a hot day the yellow, and if they are having a really bad day (i.e. not listening) then they have to move their name down to the red square. They can move up and down throughout the day. If they’ve been in the green all day, then they get a sticker – on rainbow you get two stickers. After four or five stickers you get to go to the treasure box and pick something out. You know Liam just loves that idea.

She gives a homework packet every Monday and you have to complete it by Friday, which works perfectly for us because some nights Liam falls asleep on the way home. He has to write his name every night (actually trace it). Then there’s cut out the lowercase letter and paste it under the same upper case letter. Color the pictures that are the same. Cut out two different type of objects (different fishes & different flowers) and then paste them in the correct column (fish under fish, flowers under the flower) and color them. This was the first week of homework and Liam started out every session with I can’t do that. So I’m trying to be as encouraging as possible without losing my patience. So I show him one cut and then tell him to just try. He gets so upset if he cuts off the line even a little bit. So we’ve been explaining a lot about having to practice before you’re good at something and how Mommy and Daddy had to practice a long time before we were good at cutting a straight line. So that’s been our biggest battle so far. But he likes to color, especially when I break out a coloring book and color in it while he’s doing his homework – because I want to have FUN too.

This is only the third week of school, but I notice that he’s still pretty much a loner out on the playground when I drop him off and he still wants me to stay and watch until they blow the whistle to line up for class. I’ve also volunteered to help in the class one day a week. On Thursdays from 10:45 to 11:45 (so I can just take an early lunch – nice thing about the school being so close to work), I’ll be helping with Math. Yes, that’s the math time and my mom and Greg are already worried for these poor kindergarteners. But I’ve explained that I should be fine with kinder math, as long as we don’t have to go up past 100 – those zeros can really throw me off. Actually I think they do calendar work with the math section and I’m really good at the days of the week. : )

I’ve also volunteered to help with some of the classroom parties – cuz you know how I love a party. I can’t wait until I get to make 20 themed cupcakes. I’ll be letting you all know how things are going with kindergarten and Liam, so stay tuned.