Miss E's first day of First Grade

On the first day I dropped Miss E off in first grade. Her teacher had their seat assignments ready for the meet and greet last week so we knew exactly where she would be sitting and her supplies had all already been dropped off. This made walking into the classroom on day 1 much less intimidating. A few kids from kindergarten are in her class, as are a few of the girls in her girl scout troupe. Since the class is a 1/2 blend the 2nd graders are all new to her. My hope is that this year she can work up with the second graders so she won't be so bored with the academic side of school. Where that leaves us for next year, I don't know but I trust in the school so we'll see how it ends up.

She and Mr. T got their game faces on before we left. Big day here, big day. 

 A little nervous in the classroom. She is sitting in between two 2nd grade girls that she doesn't know and across from two 1st grade boys that she does know. By the time I left, most of the kids were happily coloring and 1 kid was puking in the sink from nerves. Here's what speaks volumes about this teacher. She didn't freak out about the kid puking and she had an aide get him out of the room and down the hall to the health room with such grace that none of the other kids in the class noticed he was throwing up.

When Miss E got home that day she was really excited because T, the daughter of our girl scout leader, apparently ran into a bar on the playground and ended up going to the hospital to get 6 stitches in her forehead. Then she came BACK to school and was an instant celebrity on the playground. Yep. Puking and stitches, that's a bang up first day of 1st grade!

The hard part about this start of the year is going to be adjusting to the full day schedule. The nice thing is all the first graders came from half day kindergarten so the teacher built the entire first week around getting comfortable. They had three recesses a day, quiet time in the middle of the day and she had been reading them chapters of SuperFudge. I can see at home that MIss E is tired but she is apparently holding it together well as proven by her teacher's evening phone call home telling me how great Miss E is. Half way into the second week, things are starting to even out. They have a routine and all the stuff that Miss E LOVES about school -gym class, library, music class, assemblies - are starting to happen. All in all, things are going pretty well.

The first day was also her first day of soccer practice as well. See those shoes? 4 stores later those were the only style she wanted and Peter and I ended up driving out to a store by the airport (35 minute trip one way) after we dropped the kids off that morning to get the only pair in her size left in the greater Portland area. You know why she HAD to have them? They come with 8 color cards that you can insert into them to change the color of the swoosh. Well played Nike, well played.