Thursday, August 18, 2011

First Grade, First Day

Today James started school again. My little guy is now a First Grader - how did that happen? It's kind of reassuring me, because when his sister started her First Grade career a couple of years back, I had trouble seeing our sweet sunny kid in a regular classroom or imagining he would be following in Big Sister's sensitive, yet highly academically successful, footsteps.

Well, he is figuratively doing just that. His Grade 1 classroom is the one just down from where she went.

I am going to have to get a picture of him after I pick him up from school. He changed his clothes 3 times this morning, he was so excited. We arrived just after the bell rang, in fact. Well done me! Not.

The important part is that James took to the new classroom, teacher, aide, and kids like a morning at Disneyland. I could barely get him to pay attention long enough to shuck his backpack, jacket, and lunch in the appropriate places before he broke away and danced off into the milling crowd of kids, grinning from ear to ear. I spoke with his aide for about 15 minutes and showed her the cheat sheet, which she glanced over and pronounced "Super!"

We went to go find James. He was twirling the hands on a play clock, asking kids if they knew what time it was. Then he sat himself down in the middle of some kids playing with a train and began to play with them, sitting normally and asking them questions. One of James' strong points is his like of being with other kids and people. It was so good to see him actively participating in a new group right off the bat. It helps that he has some friends from last year in this class -- they came right up and said "Hi, James!" He even got some hugs. With just a little prompting, he was greeting them too. Then, it was all about Playing.

For me, that was better than a hug and kiss goodbye. I am sure he's going to have a very good day and start to the school year.

ETA: Pictures from the first pick-up. It was tough getting him to stay still.

He was busy checking out the letters and numbers in the trees:

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