School Days: Tess Version

After months and months of anticipation, the first day of school finally came.   We met her teacher a few days before, so that helped a lot.  Still, Tess had a lot of nerves about what to expect.  I was proud of her though, she kept her worries under control and braved the first day.

Tess had decided she wanted to ride the bus, which only compounded my worries.  But she climbed right on and off she went!  The first day parents could come meet the kindergarteners at school and then they had a "Boo Hoo" breakfast for the parents.

So I got to school in time to watch her line up with her teacher.  She was happy to see me, but she looked nervous and uncertain.



After a few minutes, she was relaxing a bit and chatting it up with the girl next to her in line.



I got to peek at Tess in her classroom before I left the building.  It was such a long day worrying and not knowing how she was doing.  She had a good day, but she was exhausted by the time she got off the bus at 4:00.  She had a headache and ended up throwing up before she fell asleep for a couple hours.  She felt better after her nap, but she was even more nervous the next morning.  Lots of tears all morning and at the bus stop.  Her main objections were how much she HATES rest time (they have to put their heads down on their tables and rest after lunch) and that she didn't like it when the teachers were mean because the kids weren't listening.


The rest of the week was a little rough.  Still tears in the morning, but she was happier at the end of each day.  Some fun things, though.  She loved her first art class, and excitedly told me that she'd learned all kinds of things can be art:  clothing, sewing, furniture, and making things.  They learned to make portraits, and she was most proud of the little eyelashes and nostrils she added to her picture.




She was also proud of how well she wrote her first and last name on each piece of a puppet she made in class.

After the first week, Nana and Papa came for a visit and Tess got to tell them all about her school adventures.

Tess really warmed up to school during the second week.  I made the decision to have her ride the bus in the morning and I pick her up in the afternoon.  It's been a good compromise and helps the day not seem so long.  Plus she's always chatty in the car and likes to tell me about her day. She also started buying her lunch at school, and she likes to pick from the menu every day.

Her school has some kind of reward system where teachers can award students "mark" stickers if they notice them doing something exceptional.  The first week, Tess told me about a girl in her class who got a "mark" for helping a new student who was crying on the playground.  I'm not entirely clear how the system works, but apparently the teachers make a big to-do about it so I guess it's kind of a big deal to get a mark.  Tess told me, "That got me thinking, I wonder what I could do!"

The second week, Tess came home with a mark sticker and a big smile on her face.  She earned the mark from her art teacher for showing "respect."  She couldn't exactly tell me what she was doing that was so respectful, but we'll take it anyway.  She made a book so that she could save and collect her "marks" from the year.


At the end of the week, she came home with another mark from her classroom teacher for "modeling self-control." Something to do with sitting on the rug in her classroom.  She's always been good at sitting.  Of course she was excited to add her second "mark" to her book.

Anyway, she's making her way and she's proud of herself and how much she's grown the first weeks of school.  Not that it hasn't been without a few bumps.  Somehow she managed to run into another classmate during P.E. (???????) and ended up with a big purple goose egg on her head.  (You can see it in the photo below if you look closely.)  Not sure how that happened.  Brian, who's visiting, said she must have run into someone just slightly shorter than her.  She told me she'd been wanting to see what the nurses office looked like, so I guess that worked out.

She ended the week with her first ballet class of the season.  She was all nerves all over again, but turns out there are several of her preschool friends in her class.  I think that will be fun for her to look forward to at the end of each week.

It's official--we now have a kindergartner in our midst!