First Day of School

Packer and Hunter started school on Tuesday, September 8th. Packer is returning to Xavier Charter School, he is now in 2nd grade, and his teacher is Mrs. Archibald. Hunter is going to Acorn Private School. He isn't officially supposed to be starting school this year since the cut-off date is September 1st - he misses it by 6 measly days!! He was actually due on August 27th, so if they went by gestational age, he would be fine but no such luck. I really struggled with what to do about him. He is already reading chapter books and figuring out simple math and reasoning problems. He was ready and really wanted to go to school. We decided to try Acorn because they are not bound by the state age requirements. It is not the fanciest of school - it looks like an old, run-down house. But as the old saying goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover." I have heard only good things about the school. The kindergarten teacher (Ms. Jensen) is just amazing and there are only 10 kids in Hunter's class. They really try to individualize the learning process to meet every child's needs. He has loved it so far and I am feeling like we made the right decision.

As you can see in the picture of all three boys, Chase doesn't want to be left out of anything. The first few days of school, I would walk Hunter into his classroom. Chase insisted on bringing his backpack too and then wanted to stay. We now just drop Hunter off at the door and let him go in by himself - Chase doesn't get so upset that way.

Chase started a little mommy-and-me preschool. The first day, when I told him that he would be having school at our house with his friend Skyla he got so excited. When he picked out his clothes he was very particular about what shirt he was going to wear - a new one we bought when school shopping for the boys. Every time I asked him if he was excited about school, he would tell me, "I've got my shirt!" I guess that meant he was ready. The problem was, he missed the part of having school at our house and that I would be the teacher. He got really mad when we left Hunter's school - he yelled all the way home. Once we got started though, he was great. We learned the letter Aa and have it taped on our wall now. He often will tell me - "A" and then yell the sound aaaaaaa! I'm glad he's learning and having fun.

His preschool is going to be with only 2 other kids and we are going to try to keep it focused on fun, educational activities. Not much sitting time, but lots of games that have a purpose. I read the book Rain Makes Applesauce and then we made applesauce. We danced to an animal song and pretended to be different animals. We learned about Noah's Ark, and put animals crackers in their own paper plate ark which they ate for snack. They made and flew paper Airplanes and colored a page with Elmo and the letter A. I had a lot of fun and so did they.