Settling & School

With week 1 of a new school and new school schedules under our belt, it seems things may be starting to get into a daily routine. A busy daily routine, but routine nonetheless. With A's new school, she starts an hour and a half after H (and gets out an hour and a half later), which I thought was going to be a real pain but I've found I really enjoy it. This gives me some time with each of them individually and stops that afternoon bickering we've been having. The only downside is that A doesn't get much time at home before the dinner, books, bed routine, but it's actually working out.
H is thriving in his Kindergarten class but after attending parent night at the Montessori school last night, I am sad he's not able to be in Montessori yet. Starting next year will be a good transition for him though, and already he's starting to read and write phonetically so I can only imagine how his reading skills are going to grow in the next few months. He's gotten back into reading picture books at night which I of course love! He's pulled out some old favorites this week: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, The mixed-up Chamaleon, If you give a Pig and Party, and many more. Ones he's really familiar with he wants to read himself (fill in the words as I read most of the sentence) and I'm so excited his interest is growing!

At A's parent night, we were very impressed with her teacher who is "old-school" Montessori and it was fun for J to hear her telling parents the same thing he used to say to parents. Things like, "don't bring them their backpack, if they forget it, that's their responsibility!" and "I don't even know what their spelling words are, that's for me to find out when they take their test at the end of the week". It was so GOOD to hear these seemingly harsh but totally normal Montessori approaches! I can't imagine what parents who aren't familiar with the child-led approach would be thinking, but we loved it! We peeked in her journal to see what she's been writing this week and found an amazingly long story the day they were supposed to write a fable. It was 2 full pages front and back, single spaced! I have NEVER seen her write so much. She told me today she wasn't finished and was going to work on it some more, and that's the great thing because they will actually let her do that!! I'm planning to go work in her classroom garden and have lunch with her today. It will be fun to see her with her new friends, apparently she's thriving socially, which we knew wouldn't be a problem!
Here's our big girl on her first day with Maria Montessori, love.