Here's my kindergartener the night before the first day of school, organizing all her supplies and anticipating the first day of school with A LOT of excitement.
By the way, I am pretty sure my parents dropped me off with a lunch pail and maybe a pencil back in the day. Look at all the stuff on the supply list these days! I will say though that I am a fan of a classroom well stocked with hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes ;)
Okay you two, time for bed!
I do have to admit, I had trouble sleeping that night. While doing Transitional Kindergarten prepared us for the every day routine of a "big kid" school, we were never fully in "school mode" if that makes any sense. This felt like a big deal, a big milestone!
And what do we have here? A VERY tired kindergartener who I could not get out of bed. School starts at 8 AM this year which is quite an adjustment from an 8:30 AM start time for TK (and we rarely made it there on time). The good news is that we are about a month in to school now and both my kids go to bed about an hour earlier now and while some mornings I am still pulling (begging) the kids to get out of bed, it has gotten easier .
Samantha's teacher, Mrs. Mulligan
1st day complete and a success!
Day two!
Getting some recess time in before the bell rings. Look how early we are to school? Okay, to be fair, it is late start on Fridays so it makes it easier to make time for play ;)
Day three and my luck has run out of getting normal smiles.
Samantha couldn't wait to find her friend Angelina at school. Angelina is in first grade but has already made efforts to join Samantha on the kindergarten playground so they can be together.
There are lots of familiar faces at Peabody. Before school and after school are very social and fun. All the families stay and hang out chatting while younger siblings take over the playground.
Mara from TK is a close friend.
Kaya from TK is also a close friend and is in Sam's class. By the way, Samantha is wiggling her teeth constantly to join most of her friends who are sporting missing teeth. So far, no luck.
Thatcher always mixes it up when it comes to who he will be when picking up Samantha at school.
One of Samantha's first projects.
Samantha was excited to share all about her recent family vacation, soccer, flamenco, her mile race medal, pictures of her friends, Lollipop, sea shells and her obsession with Monster High.
Snack time with new friends, Sage and Ashley
Afternoons are filled with play dates with new school friends. Mara invited Samantha and another friend, Lola, to a drop-off play date and even invited Thatcher to come over and play with Mara's younger brother (SCORE) and sent these cute pictures.
Peabody offers a ton of after school enrichment classes. You can choose from tennis, chess, lego building, hip hop dancing, math skills, boot camp, spanish and a lot more. Samantha chose to do Kids Cook Like Crazy.
Cooking class has turned out to be one of the highlights so far for Samantha.
In their first class they made snicker-doodles!
Giant ones!
She came home with a dozen cookies so the class is also a highlight for Thatcher (and mommy and daddy too) ;)
Part of kindergarten homework consists of reading 20 minutes a day. We are really proud of Samantha and her interest in reading and books.
It reminds me of me when I was a kid. I always had my nose in a book.
Peabody is known for its good and healthy food in the cafeteria.
Everyday we provide more than five hundred healthy, balanced “home cooked” meals, prepared from scratch right here in our kitchen. We use nearly 100% organic fruits, vegetables, grains and milk, and over half our produce comes from local growers!
Samantha has ate every single day in the cafeteria except twice and on those two days the only reason she didn't was because one of the days was the first day of school and the other day was because she wanted to use her new Monster High lunchbox that has been sitting on the counter unused.
Having breakfast at school with Daddy one morning
Handwriting is improving for our Lefty.
A lot of what they are doing in K is review from what she did in TK.
The good news is that at this school they are doing a lot more than just worksheets with all the different classes they offer including Drama which Samantha LOVES!
On Back to School Night we got to see all the fun things in her classroom. I have to say, I am impressed with Samantha's fashion sketch. Although her legs make me think my daughter might be part chicken ;)
Gotta love the phonetic spelling. I had to inquire about the "ofis" and what she meant. She doesn't like to go to the principal's office ;)
Daddy was missing on the day Mrs. Mulligan came to visit us this summer at our house to meet us. Thatcher was there but would not cooperate. Come on Thatch, even Lollipop cooperated!
The Behavior Chart
So far Sam has brought home lots of orange and yellow tickets.
Morning of the Teddy Bear Picnic at school which is where the Kindergarten classes performed a series of Bear Songs for all the parents.
We stopped in early for Peabody's infamous cinnamon rolls
Played with friends
Samantha got lessons from Isla on how to jump rope.
We stayed for brunch after the performance which said performance was videoed but Samantha was behind a taller kid so you can't see her the entire time but trust me it was cute to see five classrooms of kindergarteners singing and dancing about bears ;)
I'd say we are off to a good start in kindergarten!
