first days

Erin started first grade last week. A very comfortable, low-key new year transition since she is in the same class with the same teacher with half of the same kids as last year. All classes at her school are grade combos so each child stays in the same room for K/1 then 2/3 and then 4/5 with the same teacher for each set of two years.

The most excitement was in meeting the 10 new kindergartners who joined her class and the fact that at morning recess the first graders get to go to the seperate, larger BIG kid playground while the kinders stay in the smaller one.


After school I interviewed her about her day and the kids apparently spent a lot of time playing a rather letterboxing-inspired sounding sort of game where they followed clues to various locations around campus in search of a gingerbread man, in order to help the kinders learn their way around school and visit key places like the office and library.


Then as I detailed in my last post, the Potty Training Fairy Godmother or something equally believable casted a spell over Kate, rendering her fit to start preschool with Allison and preserving my sanity.

Here are the girls at the front step on their first day, holding their new lunchbags:

And once inside they quickly got comfortable and dug into the dress-up outfits:

and later when I came to pick them up I could barely drag them out: