Our middle guy, CC, took this photo of his brother’s school.
Tag Archives: school
Be A Brother Hugger (My 150th Post)
Today is the last day of Kindergarten for our first born. What a year it has been!
Negotiating the great educational experiment of full-day every day Kindergarten. (We did half days til Christmas). Getting to know the school culture as a parent, not just as a teacher. Plus, having the younger brothers without their eldest brother five days per week. Whew!
From the very first day of school, we have been very intentional about the importance of JC saying goodbye to his younger brothers with a hug and a kiss. I believe it helps everyone’s transition into the day. Plus who doesn’t want to start their day off with a hug and a kiss?
Here is our last day of Kindergarten:
HUG and a….
KISS!
Now off to line-up for school.
Today I will leave you with one more photo: the two big boys after they went to watch their best friends’ ballet performances. We stopped for a break to look at one of the most beautiful lakes in North America.
Be A Half-Day Kindergarten
Yesterday, I was teaching in the most beautiful Kindergarten class in a middle/upper class area in our town. These children were self-reflective, ready to learn and just a joy to be with. In the past, I have worked in rural/inner city schools that struggled with students experiencing poverty and children having many barriers to learning.
My son started Kindergarten this year, and in the past few years Kindergarten has drastically changed.
A few years ago, a five year old child used to go to school every morning or afternoon for about three hours. Then the children started going every other day for the full day. Now the children go every day from 8:30am til 2:30pm, five days per week.
When I got home from teaching these amazing Kindergarten students yesterday, I was pondering these wonderful children. It seemed that at about 12:30, they needed to go home for a rest or they needed to spread their wings in nature or they needed to just be alone. It is alot to be with the same people every day, ask anyone who works in an open office environment.
I know that people love full day Kindergarten, their daycare costs have decreased by half. But I feel very sad that school is compared to daycare. School is not daycare. We need to be spending that precious time educating our children with the best practice possible.
Children We can’t learn when we are tired!
Our government must agree with me because when we transitioned from half day to full day Kindergarten the curriculum didn’t change, but now five year olds spend six hours instead of three hours in a four walled classroom with twenty-one other students plus a teacher.
Enough said!
Be Sick
I do not like being sick! When I was a paid professional, I rarely took a sick day when I had the sniffles, a cough or even a fever. I felt that I had to troop on through for the sake of my job! Even now as a full time mom, I rarely take a day to rest when I am sick.
We are now onto day 3 of our biggest boy being sick with a raging fever and a few other symptoms (I won’t give you the gory details!) . According to the nurse at 811, children can go up to one week with a fever without any “affects”! Poor guy.
They said that kindergarten would bring on the sickness, but I didn’t think it would be this bad. JC has not been off our couch or out of the bed since Friday! For our normal tree climbing, monkey bar climbing, bed flipping little boy this is a strange occurrence!
What do I take from this? Well, if you are sick or your child is sick, do everyone in a school or at work at favour, take a sick day or two! Allow your body to heal and give yourself some space to be well. If we don’t have our health we don’t have anything.
Be a man- Part II
“Sexy Neck, how did you get this stain on your shirt and tie?”
“Honey, I had to rescue an inflatable Frosty from the top of our school!”
"Be" ENOUGH 