It's truly hard to believe that tiny little Rowan is officially a first grader. This year has gone by so quickly. I feel like I missed it. I was nervous sending Rowan to kindergarten since he was five and was going to be on the younger side for a kindergartener, almost a year younger than Zane was when he started. He seemed so little to me and so fragile, emotionally and physically. He knew how to read a few words when he started, but was much farther behind where Zane was when we sent him off. I didn't know how his tender little soul would handle the changes and the whole school environment. Also I had so loved my years with Rowan at home I desperately didn't want them to end.
Meet the teacher day, August 2018.
First day of kindergarten, August 15th 2018.
Off he goes, down the hall to his classroom. His backpack seemed huge on day one. It seems almost small now. He has grown so much this past year.
The year started with a bit of a struggle. He was tired a lot and just a ball of emotion most nights. I think much more so than Zane had been, again because he was younger, but also because Rowan's go to emotion is sadness/crying, Zane's is much louder and angrier. I will take a cuddly kindergartener at the end of the day over a screaming one any day. As the year progressed this got better and for the most part he came home in a great mode most days with all kinds of stories to tell. Now the problem being Rowan struggles with the truth, so who know which of the stories were true. There were multiple times this year where he told me something that I was sure was a lie, for example that he went to Mrs. Blue's class (a first grade teacher) to read. My response was a "no you didn't Rowan." To which Zane replies from the background, "yeah they do that, it's the reading with friends program. They go to all the different first grade classes to read." I'm sure on the flip side of that lots of his stories about normal daily activities and happenings with his buddies were complete fabrications. Generally speaking he did not have much to say about his days though. Zane use to give me minute by minute play by plays of his days when he came home from kindergarten so I felt much more out of the loop this year.
He was missing his mamma and his baby brother pretty badly at the beginning, but I think he got over that pretty quickly.
Rowan absolutely adored his teacher, Mrs. Dooley. He fell head over heels in love with her and would say things like, "I just really like all her activities," when I would question what he loved most about her. She is also an unbelievably patient and kind human being. I was thrilled that he was in her class. In good news Rowan enjoys the act of learning. He loved working on his site words through out the year, laying them out, organizing them, and was very motivated to get through all the levels of words. This was hard work for him since he really didn't read hardly at all when he started the year. He quickly grasped the idea of sounding words out and still gets very frustrated by words that have silent letters in them, or words that just don't follow the rules. (Don't we all.) He ended the year reading a lot Elephant and Piggie books and first level readers. He's getting there and I think is in a good place, hopefully we can progress some over the summer since AR reading starts next year. 
This year he has also developed a love for writing, all be it he can't spell hardly anything correctly, he loves the act of writing. Usually he's writing lists of words or a "story" of some kind. There were many days this year when he came home with some sort of prize or candy for having filled up the entire page in notebook during journal time. Rowan writing is tiny, I mean barely can read his letters, tiny, and I frequently have to remind him that the letters should take up the whole line. Meanwhile Zane writes huge and frequently had notes on his paper to stay between the lines. Their personalities can be perfectly described by their handwriting.
Birthday lunch at school.
As a kindergartener he got to go to all the different specials classes that Zane had been raving about for two years. This year they also added a STEM class to their rotation. Rowan loved all his specials teachers and going to specials was usually a highlight of his day. When asked he will say that art class is his favorite. The art teacher at his school is absolutely amazing and I have multiple kindergarten master pieces on our walls to show for it. He also told lots of tales about all the cool experiments they did in STEM class. I think Rowan may grow up to be an architect so a lot of the STEM projects seemed right up his alley.
This year I was able to go to both of Rowan's field trips, which he loved. In the fall we went to the science museum and I nearly lost multiple children, but we had a good time. Then a few weeks ago I went with him to the zoo. The zoo was fun, but hot and we were there about an hour and half too long for kindergarteners. I got to meet a lot of his little friends this way. They all seem nice but Rowan isn't friends with every single person in kindergarten like Zane was, which is completely fine. He has a good time with his little group of friends and happily did not have anyone who drove him crazy like Zane had.
These were the two Rowan's in Mrs. Dooley's class.
I loved getting to do this with him and can't imagine the sadness/guilt that I would have faced if I hadn't been able to go. We had a blast at both events.
Of course one of the big highlights from kindergarten was Rowan's broken arm. This happened in September and two casts and almost two monhe finally had his arm free again. This meant he missed all of fall tball, but he did really well having a cast on for so long. I think there were two other kids with casts on at the same time as him in his class which helped.
He also finally lost his first tooth this year. He's only lost two so far, but he was very excited for the tooth fairies arrival.
Kindergarten does two music programs during the year. There is a kindergarten lunch at Christmas time where they sing The Merry Hula. I think they start working on in September and then they have a program on the last day of the year, which I think they start working on in February. The songs are sung for months in advance so by the time the big day comes along everyone knows all the words, especially since this is our second time having a kid perform them. Rowan was the absolute cutest kid in both programs and these days were some of the highlights of his year for me.
I mean look at this cuteness in his Hawaiian shirt and everything.
Do you wanna do the Merry Hula?
The last program in the wide mouth frog, which you might remember Zane was the crocodile in his when he was in kindergarten. They learn eight or ten songs for this and Rowan's been singing them all for weeks. I love this program and it is the cutest dang thing you will ever see. Rowan had some amazing facial expressions that pushed it over the top as well. After this program they are free to be checked out. It's a perfect ending to kindergarten.
Of course Rowan, being Rowan, has had mixed emotions about this school year being over. He does seem excited for summer and being home with Thatcher and I everyday. However, he's also extremely sad about not being in Mrs. Dooley's class anymore and missing his friends. On the last day of school there were bouts of tears from him all day. Rowan has big feelings, that he feels so strongly. He loves deeply and is emotional about it. I think all those things are wonderful and they are what makes him who he is. He needed lots of cuddles yesterday and reassurance that he'll see Mrs. Dooley again and his friends will still be there and that everything will be ok. Needless to say he had a great first year of school. I cannot believe it's over. I can't wait to see what wonderful things lie in his future.
Here are his fall school pictures (on top) verses his spring school pictures on the bottom. Just look at how much he has grown up.
Last day of school pictures.
No comments:
Post a Comment