School Daze

Today was Nate's little preschool class. It's really more of a mom and me class than a preschool class, but it's housed at the same place Jack goes to school, and he got a new Buzz backpack for Christmas, so he really thinks he is hot stuff heading off to "Nate Cool".

I LOVE doing this class with him. He's so proud to do the little art projects, and he seems to enjoy the bulk of sensory play they have for the kids. Today's sensory experience consisted of Snow (the fake stuff) with shovels and buckets, snow in a pool (packing peanuts), and the ever-present play-doh. He does great work with parallel play with some of the other boys, especially with the cars, dinosaurs and fun little fine motor link toys. He doesn't do so well with sharing the cash register. He and his fave gal KiKi (Katie) used to go fisticuffs, now Charlie gets the brunt end of it.

A lot of the moms were talking about their potty training experiences. Glad I'm not the only one freaking out about that 3rd birthday coming up (okay, I DO have til June) and things not going perhaps as swimmingly as they did for the first kid they put in "big kid pants". Nate's getting there, except he only tells me he has to go Potty after the deed is done, which is great, since he's feeling the sensation and apparently not liking the wet pullup. Sigh. Sigh. Juli, I am truly jealous of Miss Gwyn. Got any pointers? I'm thinking maybe the first week of February we're going to go hardcore into those waffle-weave undies and I'll just have to make him sit in his stinkies. It worked for Jack! Or, maybe I should wait to go hardcore until after the move. Too hard to tell right now how Nate will fare with all the big changes coming up.

The mom's also got started talking about KinneyGarten. One lady lives in our new subdivision and I'm absolutely horrified that schools are now expecting kids to read by the time they leave Kindergarten. As in, 20 something sightwords, etc, and maybe even more. Thanks to Dubyah and No Child Left Behind, we're going to have a bunch of 2nd graders having school burnout.

Get this! This woman also said her daughter gets homework!!! In KINDERGARTEN! And, they're not always the easy, sorta fun practice sheets. She said there are times when her daughter DOES get frustrated with the work. Mom was a preschool director in a former life, so she realizes how developmentally inappropriate some of these standards are. Whatever happened to letting a kid learn to socialize, and LIKE school? I KNOW it's not the teacher's faults, as there is SO much top-down in education these days, and I KNOW Jack will be able to handle academics aces. I'm not worried about his academics, I'm worried about how he'll function academically if he's having social issues??

I am dreading kindergarten registration next week. Apparently, there's this gigantor packet to fill out, and you have to bring the REAL certified birthcertificate (which they said they take and make a copy of right there, so what's the point?), and forms, forms, and more forms to fill out. I'm guessing it's easier to go to Wal-Mart and buy a gun than register my Kindergartner for school.

I was semi-excited to find out that our new subdivision usually gets afternoon kindergarten, and I'm okay with that. It will be some nice quiet time with Nate, or a quiet nap time for all, depending on how the wind is blowing 9 months from now. We shall see.

Until then, I've got to start the paperwork for BOTH Jack and Nate since he starts pre-school for real next year. I haven't decided on morning or afternoon for sure for him, since I know afternoon classes are usually smaller and he'd probably do better with that; but as I said before, afternoon quiet time with him might be nice too...

All these crazy decisions!