Still loving kindergarten

 It's been about seven weeks or so since school started, and so far Hope is still loving it. She hasn't yet asked to skip school or mentioned wanting to stay home and do whatever Grant and I are doing for the day. I guess she was, indeed, ready for kindergarten!


I wondered how Hope would do making friends. She isn't super outgoing, but can bounce back and forth between being shy and being a ham depending on the situation. And since her kindergarten class is bigger than her preschool classes, I just wondered if she'd latch onto one or two friends or if she'd feel nervous or if she'd be a social butterfly. From what I can tell, she's doing a great job of making friends with most of her classmates. Every day she tells me who she played with at recess and at "center time," and it seems like there's a lot of variety.


She has also come home a bunch of times with cards and pictures that her classmates made for her. In fact, there's one little boy who really seems to have a thing for my Hopey. Peter, who is a frequent playmate, made Hope a card that said "I♥U" on the front and back and had hearts and smiley faces all over it. This same little player also gave Hope his phone number (nevermind that the 4's were backwards and several numbers were missing!) and a "movie ticket" made out of construction paper and markers. Apparently he was inviting her on a movie date!

As parents, we are happy with the school so far. Part of why we moved where we did is so that our kids could go to the fantastic schools in this district. There are lots of opportunities, even in kindergarten, for the kids to be involved and feel special. Hope has already had three special roles in her class, and she's thriving with it! She's also suddenly far more interested in letter sounds and pre-reading. Hooray!

 

During the week when Hope was the "Totally Terrific Me!" kid in her class, she got to invite a guest reader to come in. She chose Grandma, who was tickled by the honor. Grandma tells me that the kids were all sweet and excited, saying "Grandma's here!" And even though Grandma was prepared to play it cool and do nothing to embarrass Hope, she tells me that when the book was over, Hope hopped up into her lap and just blessed her heart!

Tomorrow I'll be chaperoning a trip to the zoo and helping Hope's class through the "Dash" they're doing as a school fundraiser. It sounds like a long day, but I'm eager to see Hope doing her thing!