Ivan and Owen started school today.
Ivan is following my homemade curriculum for pre-school until my books come in. Today I covered basics like identifying letters and trying to familiarize him with their sounds. I’m putting an emphasis on vowels and their utter importance to our language. I worked with him a little on numbers and values, which is his favorite thing and we covered a few history and geography things too. We ended by assembling our puzzle of the United States and reciting aloud each state name and capital. We will not be covering such a wide range of things everyday but I wanted to get an idea as to how he manages listening, following directions, changing subjects and dealing with distractions as much as everything else. He got about a C in those areas. I don’t know if he would be better off in a classroom environment or if I should be grateful I didn’t subject a teacher to his wandering and creative expression…to put it positively. His comical and imaginative way of expanding on everything I asked him to do was endearing, but I had to tighten the lines a bit and reign in his magic.
Aron was at his elbow at all times. He is certainly not ready for the focus required in real schooling, but he is very quick and eager to learn so I included him until he became an insurmountable distraction for Ivan and then encouraged him to color or put a puzzle together. His unstoppable chant was “Mommy! I can learn!!!!”
Owen was happy at last to settle into his first grade classroom this morning. I cannot tell you the peace and assurance I have in him being there. When I consider the environment, the people and the success he’s had so far, I have no doubts about where he is. The thought that consistently comes to the surface for me in regard to the school is “We are in a good place.”
So we are in our firsts today. I’m enjoying it so far and will probably be sick of it by March, but I’ll try to come back and re-read this so I’ll remember to be thankful for how far we’ve come.