It took Hayley a bit of time to warm up to grade one. It’s such a total difference from Kindergarten. In Kindergarten they had circle time on the floor, sang songs, did arts and crafts, had play areas with different toys, and learned simple things while sitting at tables.
In grade one everyone has their own desk, there’s no singing or dancing, and there’s a lot of sitting and listening to learn things. There’s also a shocking amount of homework, to the point that we never EVER do every single thing she’s supposed to do, because hell no, I’m not spending every moment that she’s home doing school work after she’s been sitting at a desk doing school work for hours on end.
Still, she’s finally really loving school. She liked it well enough before but we had several instances where she would play sick only for us to discover that she was just fine after we had kept her home. More than once I had to hope I wasn’t making a mistake and send her off to school despite claims of stomach aches, sore throats, and headaches.
Then she stopped. She went to school for a month straight without a single complaint. She goes to the breakfast club and she loves arriving in the cafeteria a bit early so she can have a variety of breakfast meals – they vary from day to day, things like cold cereal, hot cereal, eggs, breakfast burritos, waffles, pancakes, and English muffins. They also offer yogurt and fresh fruit every day in case some kids don’t like the meal of the day. She also loves seeing her friends and coming home to tell us all that she learned that day (right now they’re studying the rain forest and they have a project due for the end of the month where they have to pick an animal – she chose the iguana – and find out information about them, give a speech to the class (!), and make the animal out of clay).
Last week she had some sort of random bug. She was fine when she got up on Monday but then she suddenly had a bad cramp right before it was time to go. She started crying and said the cramping was across her whole stomach. When I felt her head she felt a little bit warm so I decided to keep her home. She spent most of the day lying on the couch looking sad and small.
She also stayed home on Tuesday. She started crying as soon as I woke her up, so I called the school again and let her sleep. She was better by lunch time so I said she’d be okay to go back to school on Wednesday. In the past she would get nervous about that, worried that she’d be stuck at school feeling sick, but that day she said she was looking forward to going back and couldn’t wait to go to bed so she could get up and go to school.
She wasn’t kidding. On Wednesday morning I got up at 6:30 like I always do. I usually go and take the dog out to pee before I get her up. I walked into the living room, leash in hand, and found Hayley sitting on the couch, fully dressed with her teeth brushed. I was shocked.
Then she repeated that on Thursday and Friday. Each day she was up before I was and dressed, waiting for me to get up so she could have her hair done and go to school. It was nuts.
This weekend was a long weekend here in Canada, and so she had today off. All day she kept telling me how she wished it was already Tuesday so she could go to school.
I’m glad that she’s finally super pumped over school. I just wonder what she’s going to do when school wraps up for the year in just over a month!
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Speaking of Hayley, she’s still a girl on a mission to save all the snails in our neighborhood. The other morning she saw that several of them had wandered from the damp grass to the sidewalk and she was worried people would step on them, either by accident or on purpose (which seems likely since there are sometimes a ridiculous amount of smashed shells when I’m walking along). She always, ALWAYS stops to pick them up. She’ll tap them on the shell very lightly so that they slip up inside, then she picks them up and puts them back in the grass out of harm’s way.
I sometimes joke with her that maybe the snails are going to get ticked off, saying, “Oh my GOD, I spent three hours getting to that damn sidewalk and she just put me back in the grass!” But really, I love that my little good Samaritan will take time out of her busy six-year-old life just to save snails.
There are recent studies that a lot of homework does NOTHING to aid the education process. Seriously. Of course the last group of people who will believe this message are teachers who will decry those studies as bogus. When homework approaches 2 hours it starts creating that “all work and no play” situation that we warn adults about at their work sites. Unfortunately there is similar consideration given to our children.
Make that “no similar consideration.” My kingdom for an online editor. lol
I’m so glad that school has become a *good* experience for her – I know how much of a struggle it’s been!
And here’s to saving small creatures. I still sometimes pick up earthworms after it’s rained and move them to dry ground!
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Believe it or not even as a former teacher, now as a mom, I’m not seeing much value in homework and see the detriment to families and family time. I do think reading daily is important and certainly feel educational excursions and outtings are wonderful enriching activities that families can share while having fun, but I’m not very supportive of worksheets that come home other than situations where a child might need more practice to master a skill. If the skill has already been mastered, than the homework is simply a waste of time. I forsee a future of arguing this with teachers. I hope that isn’t the case, but I’m fairly sure it will be.
I think it’s great that Hayley is loving school that much. Alyssa loves her teacher and classmates and generally loves to go to school. It sure makes it easier to get her going in the mornings because of that. I hope it doesn’t change next year.
As for saving snails, we’ll as always Hayley and Alyssa are on the same wave length because Alyssa calls herself a “worm saver” because she saves all the worms that crawl out onto the sidewalk or street when it rains here. That often necessitates leaving early in order to get to the bus stop on time. As for snails, so far we just count them and report to the bus driver how many we’ve seen! LOL
What a sweet, sweet girl.
Graham is in Grade One and has loved it from Day One, but who knows what the other two will think of it?
🙂
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My oldest is in grade one too, and he struggled a little with not wanting to go, although it was much better than kindergarten. He just gets jealous that his brothers get to stay home all the time (apparently getting to stay home, take naps and watch mommy type are fun activities) Thank goodness he doesn’t have a lot of homework though. His school is pretty good about that, he has a book to read daily and spelling words for the week (five words). That’s it! I definitely think expectations for homework are extreme in many cases and more than any adult working would want to take home!
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Snails eh? My girls want to save worms! If it’s raining outside, or we’re digging in the garden – they take EVERY worm they see and put it near a plant to help the plant and worm.
You’d think girls would be grossed out by snails and worms – glad ours aren’t!
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