A New School Year

Just like they grow up way too fast … summer also goes by way too fast.  On September 4th a new school year began again.  This was the year I was suppose to have a picture of all members of the household (except myself) heading off to school.  I would have been the only one not attending school (trust me I wasn’t feeling left out, but quite happy to send them off to do the school work).  But alas, Rob decided in the spring he was done with school and so that day never came … but regardless September 4th seen my baby head off to school

I know I’m suppose to be emotional and sad about my last one heading off to school, but to be honest I was quite happy for him.  He was getting bored at home, not stimulated enough (my fault, I really should have taken more time, but he would have gladly had me spend all day entertaining and teaching him) and was quite excited to be able to get out of the house a couple days a week.  I was also looking forward to a couple days a week to myself to be a little bit more productive on those days and accomplish some of those “extras”  It works nice when I still get to spend three days a week with just him.

In the end it didn’t quite work out the way I had imagined (shouldn’t try plan/imagine ahead, things don’t tend to go they way you figure anyways).  On my end I decided to volunteer one day every other week to help out at Kindergarten.  I am also babysitting a little 2 year old (now 3) on Tuesdays.  So that leaves me with two Thursdays a month all to myself … if nothing else comes up those days, as has happened several times.  Not that it really matters since Matthew has gotten better at entertaining himself at home again and so when he is home he’s pretty much busy on his own the majority of the time. 

Matthew came back from his first day of school and immediately declared “I had an awful day”.  Apparently school was not his idea of fun.  Sitting in a desk and keeping his mind on something was a bit of a challenge, one I expected as he’s always had a bit of a short attention span.  Well he loves to learn and is bright he tends to jump from one thing to the next.  Colouring is not one of his favourite pass times and it takes him several days to colour a picture.  He colours a bit and goes to play, comes back does a bit more, off to do others things again … sitting and colouring an entire picture in one day is way to much for him … let alone several pictures in one day.  He also likes to be confident he can do something before he tries it, when he’s ready to try something then he can usually accomplish it … if it’s a challenge he gives up.  So, having to do things when told and not when he chose was a concept he didn’t really like.  All these things were things we expected … I just didn’t expect him to come back on the first day already to declare he didn’t like school.

After the opening assembly parents are able to stop by their kids class for a few minutes.  Since Matthew has school in the church I stopped there first. 

Sitting at his desk … which was one of his disappointments for the day.  On the Kindergarten Day he had in May he sat at a desk with Thomas.  I’m sure in his head he thought he would be sitting with Thomas again, so he was not impressed that not only did he not get to sit with Thomas but he had to sit with TWO girls.

Another thing that left him upset was the fact that I sent crayons to school when it was suppose to be pencil crayons.  I had not read the paper correctly and just assumed in kindergarten they would still be using crayons.  I guess this mistake was quite traumatizing as he felt centered out or something of that assort that he had the wrong ones.

Going on a Gingerbread Man hunt

Eating the gingerbread man cookies

I will add that Matthew was quite excited that the next school day his seating was changed to sit beside Thomas.  Seating arrangements have changed several times since then and he’s gotten over the issue of sitting beside a girl … I think it was more the fact that things were different then he imagined and it was all too much for one day.

Unfortunately Matthew still does not like school.  After a month in school he seemed to be happier with it, having gotten used to the routine and what was expected of him.  He went through a stage of just scribbling his pictures quickly as he seen other kids that didn’t colour quite as well as he could getting away with that.  So , not wanting to be last done, he would just quickly scribble it in and be done with it.  So we also had to chat about doing your best and that there was nothing wrong with taking your time or being last.  Helping out in the class every other week gives me some insight into how he’s doing … altho I’m sure he does behave different when mom is there.  It’s not for lack of knowledge that he doesn’t like school, I am quite hoping it’s the opposite and that it’s boredom that creates a lack of interest in completing the tasks and that eventually this will settle when he’s more challenged.  He is excelling and is already reading basic stuff (Dick and Jane books which Rob and I learned to read from in Grade 1) as well as putting together basic sentence on his own (eg The cat is in the car).  Guess we’re just going to have to wait and see how the next 13 years go.

After visitng Matthew’s class I popped by the school to see Rebecca and Marietta.

Rebecca in Grade 5 … no kids in the lower level this year …. and has transitioned well into it … as far as we know, she never tells us boo or baa so we really have no idea what’s going on in her class.  Thankfully Marietta does a good job on keeping us up-to-date on the goings on at school.

Marietta in Grade 7.

Grade 7 has definitely been a change for Marietta.  Right from the beginning she was drowning in homework and struggling to keep up.   She started September off taking Voice Lessons and Piano Lessons but was finding no time for either and so she dropped Voice Lessons, even then she couldn’t keep up with Piano but we insisted she had to focus on her piano and relax on the homework end.  This was easier said then done as she still stressed about her homework and continued to let her piano slide.   It was a rough first four months with a lot of stress and more tears then we liked.  We are thankful that this has recently changed and things are more manageable now and we hope that it will stay this way as we sure like our less stressed Marietta much better!