With summer just around the corner, it’s time for the end of the school year report. Ryan has had a banner year in kindergarten and his parents have survived their first year as elementary parents. Most mornings, I drop Ryan off at Lake Elementary before heading into the office and it’s a nice way to start the day. While Ryan has improve his skill across the board–literacy, math, and monkey bars, kindergarten has been educational for me as well. Here’s my book report on what I learned this year.
August. Wow! Elementary school starts early. Got to get out of the house by 7:20 am.
Last summer, Ryan attended a number of one week camps. So when he started kindergarten, it was logical for him to think of it as a 5 day, Monday through Friday activity. On Friday, after the first week of school, he asked, “Dad, are we all done with kindergarten, now?” Not even close, kid.
September. Ryan’s teacher has an elaborate behavior management system involving colored cards. Every child has a series of cards and each moving everyone starts on green. Behavior infractions lead to a downgrade in color to yellow and then orange. Excellent behavior upgrades to purple. It’s cross between soccer penalty cards and Homeland Security’s color-coded terrorist alerts.
November. Visited my first book fair in years. Still awesome.
Parent-teacher conferences and oddly enough I’m the parent! Ryan is making great progress, but I forget to raise my hand before answering a question and my Homeland Security class behavior card gets demoted to yellow.
December. I am blown away by the shear amount to camera phones and tablet computers videotaping and photographing the Christmas sing-a-long. It’s like the kids are on a red carpet and the parents are paparazzi. Jenni and I documented the moment appropriately, but certainly didn’t videotape every note of “Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts.”
And why do we allow people to hold up iPads as cameras in audience situations? Would it be socially acceptable to go to the moves and hold up a book in front of another movie patron? Still I enjoy watching my son on a Samsung Galaxy S4 being held by a mom a few rows ahead of me.
February. It’s been weeks since Ryan has given me a decent goodbye in the morning. At the beginning of the year there were hugs and kisses; now there’s a little eye contact and a wave good bye. Little man is growing up.
March. It’s the highlight of the kindergarten social calendar–Farm Fair! The agricultural unit culminated in the morning festival with a petting zoo, butter churning, juice squeezing, horse feeding, and tug-of-war. Not sure what tug-of-war accomplishes on the farm, but the kids seem to like it.
Jenni takes Ryan to the mother/dance, which I can only conceive of in mind as Motherboy from Arrested Development. I realize I have not procreated the right gender for me to participate in any parent/child dances.
May. Lake Elementary Open House. As a real estate agent, I show up with a highly motivated home buyer, but apparently it’s not that kind of open house.
June. Hard to believe Ryan’s first year of school has come and gone. Next year we’ll have two students to get out of the house by 7:20. Is drivers education offered at Lake Elementary and how soon can Ryan get his license.
