School Days

I am kind of glad I wasn't more on top of getting these posted only because it was nice to see how the first week of school went for both of the boys.

Well, to start off the last day before school we went off and had some fun. Happy meals,

Wunderland and lots of other fun stuff. Gotta end the summer with a bang! Both boys started a week or so after most kids, which I kind of liked so we could have fun just us three without having to worry about all the crowds.

Also the week before school started both boys had the oppourtunity to visit their school, meet other kids in their class and meet their teachers. For some reason we weren't able to do it last year but I think it helped a lot, especially Max. He's more of my shy one and out of the two of them I was more worried about him liking it and wanting to go.

Mr. Max 

At first he didn't want to go to the preschool's open house but he warmed up once he saw all the toys and play doh. I'm glad it was really low key too and that it was just the two of us (instead of with our whole family and everyone else's families) because he got to really explore it and decided he liked it.

A terrible picture but he found a friend! I think it will be a good class with 4 boys and 4 boys. A nice small mix.

Since Max has school every day but friday (Levi doesn't do Monday's) he was the first to go. And because he had been there and liked it he was ready to go. He got his own little lunchbox for his snack and found a backpack he hadn't used in a while but redescovered and loved. 

I was nervous about the drop off because he is my shy one but he dropped off his backpack, ran into class amd didn't even say bye or look back. I was very proud, though to be honest, a little sad no kiss good bye. In the long run though I would much rather have the no goodbyes than the alternative.

When I picked him up he was all smiles and proud to show me his craft project. 

I took these back to school pictures the day before because I like to get some nicer, not phone pictures just to have because most of the time the ones right before are fairly stressful and hurried so I just wanted to get these taken care of before the big day. Max was a trooper and with a little bit of candy corn was ready to go for his 'photo shoot'.

 

All ready for his first day at Mustard Seed.

First Week Report: The first week went really well and for the most part he ran in without looking back and was very excited when picked up. His teacher told me how great he is doing and that when they have had to have some talks with the boys about being too aggressive and physical he has been the only one who hasn't really needed it (though he still got the talking to as a reminder for all).

The only hard part was on the last day of the week he had rough time going. He kept telling me he didn't want to go to school and wanted to go home, which I thought was weird because he had been doing so well. The teacher saw the meltdown and after some asking he cried "they take my toys!". Apparently their are two boys who takes toys, one who does it a lot and very aggressively and the teacher had already talked to the parents about it. Hopefully that gets figured out. I had to leave him crying but he was ok. I know the directer pretty well (we're facebook buddies) and she told me he was fine after a few minutes and that he totally has my number. I know. He can play me like a fiddle some times.

Sir Levi

Now this year we are doing something a little bit different as far as school goes with Levi. This year he will be attending Pioneer Heritage Academy which is a private school. It is not done by the church but it is primarily made up of and run by church members. It's small and to me is kind of a mix between home school and a religious private school. School is much shorter (Tue, Wed, Thurs all from 8-12pm) and so there is a lot more work outside of class that needs to be done. I hear from parents of older kids a lot of times this is really good because it helps teach self discipline and time management skills. He's only in the first grade so there's not too much homework at this stage anyways. In his class there is one teacher and 5 kids, 4 boys and 1 girl. Their teacher is awesome too, she's so fun!

There are a number of reasons why we went this route and it's hard to get it all into words. It is  really more my idea than Jason's and something that was debated about a LOT for various reasons. One big reason was just how I felt about it. When volunteering in Levi's class room last year, which I did once a month, I always felt stressed and very unsettled about it, at least as far as Levi was doing in the class. I know some of the reasons why but mostly it was the feeling I got which was overall that it was not a great fit for Levi right now. With the thought that something besides public school might be a better option for him, I was forbidden to do home school, which I don't think would have worked well for me at this time anyways.

So Levi and I visited Pioneer Heritage, a school that was around when I was in high school and  was attended by a number of people I knew and really thought highly of.  While it was something completely different than anything I had done before, as he was in class with the other kids, I felt completely the opposite as I felt in his kindergarten class. I felt good and happy and fairly confident that would be a much better fit for Levi. 

Even with all that it was something I debated not only with Jason about but with myself  for many many reasons. There are pros and con's for going either school route. But I finally talked to a friend and after talking to her it really made me realize that whatever we decided to do wasn't permanent. Heck, if it didn't work out after a few weeks and we wanted to change, we could. We were the parents and we could change anything anytime we needed and whenever it might not be a good fit for him, or his brother if he ended up going later on down the road. 

So all I know right now is that it feels right for Levi right now and so we're going to test the waters and see how it goes. Also as another note, he really like it too and said he liked it better than his other class. I think he felt overwhelmed with so many kids sometimes and struggled a little with that, though overall he did have a fun experience.

First day:

First off this boy is MUCH better at getting up early than I am. He just wakes up all chipper and cheerful, I'm positive he gets that from his dad, definitely not me.

But he got up early, dressed, ate and was ready to be picked up by a friend in our ward who we are carpooling with. I had just enough time to snap this picture (while I was still in my pj's....) He was way excited to go. 

The teacher, Sister Riley, is extremely nice and took a couple of pictures of him and the kids and sent them. Levi was pumped because they got to do some science experiments. 

 

I picked him up after school along with the other kids in our carpool. While taking a picture I asked him how his day was:

Here are pictures from the day before from his photo shoot. What a handsome boy, I love this kid.

1st grade. He really wanted me to take this shot.

Jumping.....because he likes to jump.

First week report:  So far so good. He loves it, I love it. He is having fun, learning lots, and having a blast really getting to know and play with the 4 other kids in his class. I also love that because of how our schedule works out, Levi doing school in the morning and Max doing school in the afternoon, while it requires a little more running around (at least on 3 days of the week) I get to have alone time with both boys. I work one on one with them with school/reading, get to chat with them one on one and it has even helped with chores. With Max I've found he'll actually do chores without his brother to do it all for him and I am working on teaching Levi some new jobs like emptying the dishwasher by himself and other things.

I also really like that on Friday neither has school and because Levi did his homework we were able to go to a friends house and have a fun play date with a ton of other kids where they ran around for 4 hours exploring the outdoors. That's as good as PE right? Because there is more flexibility in the schedule we can do things more in our own time and way. We'll see how things go when we throw in piano practice in next week and also when we throw a baby into the mix. But for right now Levi is liking it and so am I so we'll stick with it.