Ryan's First Week

10 February 2011

Ryan just finished his first full week of school.  There are some things that I like a lot better than the last school and then there are some things that I’m still adjusting too.

Thankfully we were able to meet the teacher a few days before his first day.  She was very friendly and we were pleased to learn that there is a teacher’s aide in the class every day!  At his old school there was an aide, but she wasn’t full time and it only seemed like she was in the class for a few hours every week.  There are about 19 kids in the class, with a majority of them being girls.  A shift from his last class.

Three of the biggest challenges are getting him to/from school, being creative with what to put in his lunch, and finding the correct school supplies.

There is no bus that runs on post for the kids and Kindergartners are not allowed to walk to or from school by themselves.  On the day we met the teacher we learned that there are 2 to 3 kids in his class with severe peanut allergies so I can’t give him the normal PB&J in his lunch that he loves so dearly. Craziness.  They originally just wanted us to come meet the teacher the morning of his first day.  I would have sent him with a PB&J not knowing about the restriction.  Finding the correct school supplies is not yet accomplished.  There is a specific composition book they require him to have.  I have been to the PX about four times in the last week looking to see if they have it and they don’t.  The teacher’s aide said if our PX doesn’t have it then we’ll probably have to go to Schweinfurt or Graf to get it.  Kind of hard to do without a vehicle though.  Schweinfurt is about 30 minutes away and I believe Graf is closer to a few hours.  Thankfully there was one of his old books from his old school that is similar.  It was delivered the day before he started school, so it should hold him over for a few weeks to give us time to make the drive to *hopefully* find the right book.

One of the other things I do like is the teacher’s communication!  She handed me more information the morning we met than I got out of Ryan’s previous teacher.  He just finished his first week and she already set up a conference with us to talk over where he is and what he needs to work on.  We have also received information on two Parent Involvement events coming up.   

We were able to meet with her today when we picked Ryan up from school.  I was grateful that Tim was able to come as well!  She said he’s on average with the rest of the class.  She said he knows his phonics, but just needs to work on blending and some of his sight words.  She has already sent home tools to help with his sight words and reading that we have been working on.  I don’t feel like that was something we got from the previous teacher.

She said that she has always had kids that have asked, “Is it lunch time yet?”, but Ryan is consistently asking, “Is it playtime yet?”!  Something we will have to work on.  She said that tells her two things though…1.  That he got a lot of playtime before, but also 2. That he’s still learning quite well considering he’s at the middle of pack in her class.  She had suggested that he might not feel challenged enough.  I’m not sure yet if it’s not feeling challenged or just not real interested yet. :)  I partly think that he’s a quick learner and sometimes he just gets bored with sitting there for hours on end doing work.  The boy just wants to get up and play!  To me, that’s pretty typical boy and I’m honestly not very concerned.

Overall, we are very pleased with his teachers and he seems to have adjusted quite easily.  I am hoping that once I get a license that I can drop the other two boys off at daycare for a few hours and go sit in on class for a bit!