First Day of Senior Kindergarten

Last Tuesday was Delphine's last day of summer vacation. We stuck labels on her new backpack, lunch bag and shoes, and speculated about her new teacher, which of last year's kids would be in this year's class, and whether the JKs would be cute or not. While we were eating lunch I wondered how we had felt on the same day last year, Delphine's last day before Junior Kindergarten. Were we excited, were we nervous? I don't know, and I never will because I never wrote it down.

This year Delphine was a little nervous. She was scared that the teacher wouldn't like her, although that fear was largely soothed by the arrival of a lovely letter from Mrs Thompson to Delphine (in the mail, no less!) saying how excited she was to meet Delphine and what fun they would have in kindergarten, learning letters and numbers. Delphine was a bit offended by that last bit — "I already know letters and numbers!" — but I said Mrs T probably sent the same letter to the SKs and JKs, who might not know their letters and numbers yet.

I, too, was a little nervous, probably more so than last year because this year I know what is coming — a lot of getting people places on time and not much time in between to take stock. But only a little nervous, because this year I do know what's coming, and I have a plan, and perhaps most importantly I have accepted that taking people places is my main job during the school year (well, along with feeding and clothing them), and anything else I can get done apart from that is pretty much bonus. So rather than regarding the commuting as an inconvenient interruption to my life, I now just go along with it. Think of all the exercise!

Delphine's first day of school was last Wednesday. She's still in afternoons, and she's in the same classroom as last year, and as it turns out, all the Seniors were in her class last year. The first day of school was only Seniors, so she got to renew some old friendships and get to know her new teacher. Delphine loves Mrs Thompson! Mrs Thompson smiles a lot, and on the first day she wore a pink dress — I don't know if that was calculated to win the favour of a roomful of five-year-old girls (the Seniors are six girls and two boys) but if it was, it worked. Delphine says Mrs Thompson does everything in the wrong order (which is to say, not the way Mrs Hollister did it) but she seems willing to indulge her errors. Mrs Thompson taught her a new song! In fact, yesterday Mrs Thompson taught her the Macarena! And they say public schooling is inferior!

Delphine has now had four days of SK. She wasn't impressed by the JKs on day two — they were noisy and talked too much — but yesterday she kind of made friends with one of them. She had gym on Thursday (her teacher's name is Mr Laundry! Actually it's Mr Landry, but 'Mr Laundry' cracks her up) and Library on Friday, and everything seems to be going fabulously.

Since Delphine learned to read over the summer, and SK/Grade 1 is supposed to be when you learn to read, I'm going to talk to Mrs Thompson about what, if any, other goals Delphine should work towards over the school year, and what kinds of enrichment she can offer her. She's beyond the basic "k-k-k-kite" Jolly Phonics stuff this year, so I hope we can manage not to bore her out of her tree. Especially considering there are only eight SKs. But I'm borrowing trouble, I'm sure we'll work something out. Now it's time to make lunch and haul everyone off to school, at least once I manage to get some clothes on Cordelia.