Arya started kindergarten this week! I cannot believe how quickly the last 5 years have passed. We found out in June that Arya would be going to Burris. Around July, we learned that kindergarten was being extended to full day rather than half day. Then a few days before school started we found out that all elementary grades would be adding an extra hour to the day!! This makes Arya's school day 8 hours long, which has been quite an adjustment. She has been doing great, but has clearly been exhausted these last few days. (We stopped having her take an afternoon nap about a month before school started in an attempt to get her tired and to bed earlier so that she could also start getting up earlier. We definitely made progress, but it has ) She has today off due to faculty meetings, and I think that the break will be good for her as she continues to transition to her new routine!
Rajeev, Alex and I all walked to school on Monday for Arya's first day. Parents were invited to stay for story time. Mrs. Huffman read The Kissing Hand, a sweet story that made all of us parents get teary. :)
As for kindergarten itself, Arya seems to be enjoying it. On the first day she used the following words to describe it: great, amazing, fabulous, and perfect!
She has two friends from preschool in her class and she has made friends with a couple of other kids too. She loves the playground. She seems to really like her teacher too. She liked playing with the parachute in gym class this week, getting to check out a book from the library, playing a game in class to get to know the names of different students, and learning to read the phrase, "I like to..." (She is ready to read a different book in class though because they keep re-reading the one that just uses lots of different "I like to" phrases (I like to read/cook/munch/etc.). I explained to her that seeing the same phrase often will help them to remember how to recognize those words, but she still says she'd like to get a chance to read something else though! Too funny!)
She has taken her lunch to school this week and seems to be happy with that. (Just for record keeping purposes, school lunch is $3.20/day. I think it was $1.10 when I was in middle school and $1.35 in high school.)
We've also continued our attempt to walk to and from school whenever possible. Parking is limited and traffic is busy, so walking has been a great alternative (especially since we've had nice weather). It takes about 7-12 minutes to walk to school (depending on whether Arya and Alex are walking too or in the stroller). I usually make it in 7 or 8 minutes when I walk pushing the stroller, but we make a lot more stops to look at things along the way when the kids are walking. :) Plus, it gives us a nice time to talk about the day, enjoy the outdoors, and get a little exercise.
I know that this year will hold a lot of wonderful things for Arya, and while I feel a little sad that she is growing up so fast, I'm so excited for all that she will be learning and doing this year. I love this little girl with all my heart. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment