First Day of School

James was pretty excited about the first day and was ready to go from when he first woke up. He slept really well in the night, which I was pretty pleased about as I slept better too. He got up, got dressed right away and ate breakfast (while watching a taped football game)

He put on his backpack filled with a change of clothes, shoes, snacks and an easy button. He only wore it for the picture, after which we decided it was too much for him to carry all the way there and I carried it from the point on.

The walk took us 25 minutes and we arrived at the playground- one of the first to arrive. We wandered around for a bit and he played on the playground. Eventually, I caught sight of a teacher and knew immediately that it was James' teacher. She was wearing an odd hat and I figured James would get the teacher with the odd hat. I went up closer and read her name tag and yes, that was James' teacher. I spoke with her a little bit. She was very nice and gave me instructions for the rest of the day (how to pick him up for lunch, etc). On first impression she seems nice, but definately no-nonsense! From only first impression, I would guess she runs a well scheduled class. And James loves schedules. At least he's happy sticking with a schedule.

Anyway, I saw Brenda and Rowan in the yard, but I'm not sure James remembers Rowan and they weren't in the same class, so I'm not sure if that's any help to James. We also didn't see Rebecca in the yard.

After the yard was filled with heaps of kids. The bell rang and everyone converged on the north doors. Some guy announced something, but we didn't hear a word of it. I knew we were headed for the gym from the letter I got so I followed the herd there. There were heaps of kids sitting down so we also sat down. I talked to a lady who I had heard talking to James' teacher as her son Lucas was in James' class. She's from St. Catharines too. I didn't ask her name though, I should have. I expect I'll meet her again. They had just moved from Hamilton and Lucas is in SK with no French immersion and also had not done JK either, so he has some things in common with James.

Then we had to organize according to the signs on the wall, which was chaotic, but got done. The SK and grade ones were together and the teachers called out their names. James' teacher went first. I did not hear her call his name but when her group started moving, I had James go after them. Then the children walked in a line up to their class. The parents straggled behind. The teacher called each child's name and they hung their backpack on the hook. Once all the children had deposited their backpacks, she told the kids to give their parents a last hug and the children then went in the class. I last saw him sitting down in the circle area. The room looks for more like a grade 1 room than a kindergarten room and I'm sure they just had too many kindergarteners, they had to stuff them somewhere. There are 7 kindergarteners in James' class the teacher told me according to her list.

James wanted apple cinnamon muffins for lunch, so I have baked them and I will go down and pick him up for lunch in about 40 minutes. We'll eat outside at the school as it would take too long to walk back here.

Then at 3:30 I will return to pick him up and go to his class' open house. I'll take more pictures!