Transition into School
Yes, here are the little darlings on their "first" day of school. Okay okay I admit, these pictures were actually taken a week after school started, but I was at BYU for the first week of school so these will have to do. This was Sam's very first year of preschool and he is loving it. He's been ready for preschool for a year now. And this will be Aiden's third year of preschool - 2 1/2 to be technical - since he started RIGHT when he turned three due to the state-funded program.
So what does this mean for me? TWO WHOLE HOURS TO MYSELF EVERY DAY! I can't believe how much quicker the grocery shopping goes and how much I can get done during those two hours every day. I. Am. Loving. This.
Aiden, however, has had a hard time transitioning into the new school schedule. For the first 3 weeks or so, he tried to convince us every morning that his teachers said there was no school that day. It was like pulling teeth to convince him to get in the van just to really make sure there was no school that day. Once we'd get to school and he'd see all the kids walking in, he'd bolt in the opposite direction back to the van because he didn't want to go. Here's a video of his first escape attempt that Rex filmed:
http://youtu.be/79SH5PnCQKg
He ran out of the school and climbed the fence to escape. Poor kid.
I talked with his teachers to see what I could do to help him accept his new school fate. They suggested making a picture schedule for him to follow at home so that he could see the events leading up to coming to school. One of his teachers even sat down with him and made a calendar to show when there WAS school and when there wasn't. I even bribed him with video game time after school if he went and was happy. It worked a little bit, but Aiden would try to take down the "School" tag every chance he got. :)
Then what REALLY worked was sheer genius on his teachers' parts. They made a little booklet for him to read every morning that laid out the law, so to say. It started with "I will go to school." Then "I will not cry" then "I will have safe hands" and so on until the end of the book that had a piece of his velcro schedule from school that he had to take with him to school. And it WORKED! He was so excited to have something from school at home with him that was his responsibility to take back to school every day.
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