The 70 blues

I finished kindergarten in 1976. I started up again in 2009.

When Michael started kindergarten in a co-op school -- where parents help out in class once a week -- it did feel a little like I was back in kindergarten too. This was almost better because I could actually enjoy it as was happening, as opposed to my real kindergarten year, when I didn't understand how great I had it. No, I didn't actually play during Michael's kindergarten year, but I got to see him grow and learn and have fun. Kindergarten is wonderful -- there's learning, and there's play time. This will be the only year in their school career where they will have both. Preschool was mostly play and social skills. First grade was a little play and mostly educational skills. Kindergarten is the perfect balance of both.


Michael had a blast in kindergarten, then moved on to first grade. Ben started kindergarten last fall, with the same great teacher Michael had. It was like walking into a time capsule. All the same things I loved about Michael's experience were here for Ben as well. Sitting in circle. The morning message (the picture above shows the message from the first day of class: "Dear class, Today is the first day of kindergarten. Love, Jamie"). Browsing (what's called play time in his class). Snack. Running around at recess. Checking in, which entails the kids writing their names at the beginning of the day so that they learn how to write their names really well. The subtle ways the teacher mixes in learning into the kids' day.

One of those subtle ways is the calendar. Jamie, the teacher, gets the class to say the month, day of the week and day number every morning, then adds a straw a bundle of straws (divided into ones, tens and hundreds) for the number of class days so far. On my co-op day Wednesday -- in our first week back since winter break ended -- the number of straws reached 70. And that's when it hit me: The kindergarten experience, the wonderful time Ben is enjoying and Michael enjoyed, the wonderful time I get to observe them at this age, is almost done.

Granted, we got about five months to go still, but that 70 was sobering that Ben is a kindergarten veteran, and in less than a year, he's going to be a first-grader. Our focus the last two years was to get him ready for kindergarten, and it's just about halfway done. He's doing so well, and we are so proud of him.

The boys will reach milestones in their young lives, and some will be bittersweet. Michael emerged from kindergarten smarter, more confident, and even happier than he was, and is now the grand poobah of second-graders. When Ben finishes kindergarten -- smarter, more confident, even happier than he is now -- I will be thrilled, and I know he will rock first grade. But it will be bittersweet. He won't realize for years how great kindergarten was. At least after my third trip through kindergarten, I'll know how great it was.

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