Kindergarten

After the summer of limbo, Jake ended up accepting a job in Phoenix and we moved our family to Arizona in September.

Jake and I went out a day or two early to unpack our stuff (well the stuff he brought from Utah, it took a bit longer for our things that were in Massachusetts to arrive), and get Carder registered for school, etc. My mom brought the kids up a couple days later and Carder started school that next morning (Arizona was already 6 weeks into their school year.) We were very lucky and found an accelerated public school that many of the kids in our ward ended up attending as well. It was a great fit for him, being both academically rigorous, as well as a little more strict to teach him how to better follow direction/rules.

Of course I had to follow in the footsteps of my Madre and do the annual first day of school photo shoot (gotta love those early morning tired eyes!)

The newest Franklin Firebird

The first couple weeks of school were rough! For some reason just before we moved from Boston, Carder developed this weird anxiety. Like he had to know exactly where I was and if he couldn't see me he'd sometimes freak out. It got so bad that one time I put him in the car and then walked around the car to get into my door and by the time I opened my door he was crying because he couldn't see where I was and thought he was all alone. I have no idea what triggered this, but all summer he continued on with it, needing to accompany me upstairs when I brought up laundry, etc., so he wouldn't be alone downstairs. I had a feeling this could be problematic if it carried over into his starting school.

Franklin (Carder's elementary school) had some unique things going on. I guess it used to be a middle school and was converted to an elementary school, anyway, it was off of a main road so you couldn't walk there (plus it was about 3 miles away from where we lived), kids either road the bus or arrived by car.  The facilities had very limited parking (not enough to be able to have all the parents park and drop their kid(s) off), so to solve this problem the school developed a pick up/drop off method where you literally didn't get out of your car. In the morning you waited in line (via car) and once you got to the part of the loop that was the playground your child opened their door and got out, and as for pick up you waited in the car line and once you got to the benches where the aids had the children you told them who you were there to get (until they learned who you were, then you were able to just offer a friendly smile and a wave) and they radioed the other aids letting them know who had arrived and you continued down to where your child was waiting for you down the line. I always teased that I had to go order Carder when it was time to pick up, since it felt like I was placing an order at a fast food restaurant.  

Our first week there Jake hadn't started work yet, so he was able to help transition Carder with school. He took him and walked him to the playground that week and even attended lunch with him every day since Carder was super scared of the cafeteria--since that was the time he didn't have his teacher there and there were so many children. He cried everyday. It was a full day program, they were fairly strict (like there was no floor time, and they had to walk in line with "ducktails and bubbles" (hands behind their back and mouths closed ) and he never got that first day of school where everyone is new and meets the teacher, etc. When Jake started work, I took Carder to the loop, because I wasn't going to be able to find a parking spot every morning and half the time I had swaddled Brenn and buckled her in her seat half (if not fully) asleep to take him to school. My sister was still there so I'd left Brenn home that morning, but when we got to the kindergarten playground where he was supposed to get out, he started freaking out. I drove through the line and fortunately was able to find parking and walked him up to the playground where the classes were starting to line up. I will never forget the look on his face that morning, his wide eyes looking back at me completely petrified. It was like they were saying "You are really going to leave me here?" It wasn't just him playing us he was genuinely scared to death. I kissed him goodbye and assured him everything was going to be fine and left him there in the hands of his teacher. As I walked back to my car I felt my chest get tight and my eyes start welling up. By the time I made it into my car I was sobbing and when I got home I couldn't stop as I recounted my morning to my mom and sister. It was horrible!  

The teachers/faculty were understanding and eventually Carder came around (maybe a little too much because he was then put on a behavioral plan for talking too much/needing to be more focused/do his "jobs" better...fortunately he quickly graduated from that and became a great student both academically and behaviorally!) He made tons of friends and ended up loving school (and even mastered the pick up/drop off loop).

Brenn and Me entertaining ourselves as we waited for Carder in the pick up loop. At first I HATED the idea of the loop (Carders difficulty with it was probably a major contributing factor to that), but man oh man was it awesome. Like if Brenn was still napping or not awake yet, you could carefully transfer her to her seat and she'd easily get another half an hour of sleep in since she didn't have to get in and out of her seat again until we made it home (and lets not forget the fact that I could be in my PJs and no one would know...)

Shortly after starting school Carder was able to be "Star of the Week." He loved making his poster and being able to share all about himself with his class.

Brenn loves to be big just like her brother "Cardy" she is super independent and needed to walk those stairs to/from our second floor apartment all by herself

Another big day was his first picture day. He came home with the greatest school pictures from preschool and I was hoping that was going to be the trend from here on out. He has entered the painful/cheesy smile phase of life, so we did a little practicing before he went to school...

And the result...The one on the left was attempt one. The right is what we got from make up picture day (a little better I guess). Hopefully next year we will get this dang picture day mastered!

 Carder did very well in school. He loved math and caught on to his phonograms with ease. I hardly had to help him with his nightly homework. When he got his report card it was straight As. Krispy Kreme has a program that for every A you earn on a report card they give you a free doughnut, so after school we headed on over there. Carder was so proud of himself as he stood in line and handed his little paper to the worker to "pay" for his box of doughnuts.

We were lucky to get to have my Mom and Jaxon come up for a visit and attend Carder's school's fall festival with us.  There were hallways full of games, bounce houses galore and even a giant inflatable ball that you could get inside and roll around like a human gerbil (the boys found that to be totally awesome).

Aside from the normal academics, Carder also attended PE twice a week, music, Art and computers/library. In his music class they put together a kindergarten winter sing. It was so fun to get to see him perform all his songs.

 

The video of his performance...

When we found out that we'd be moving the hardest thing about it was Carder. Taking him out of a  school he loved and from all the good friends he'd made. He fortunately handled it really well. Below is him with one of his best buds. He was the first friend Carder made at school. On Carder's first day he befriended him and was so great to the "new kid."

To say I was anxious about starting Carder at a new school (and mid-year at that) would be the understatement of the century. Jake had a few days before he started work, but because we had to get two separate things notarized and make it to the county clerk etc to prove our residency to get him into school (ridiculousness!), he ended up starting work before we were able to start Carder in school. We lucked out that our neighbors that live above us are in our ward and actually have little girl who is five who ended up being in Carder's new kindergarten class. He had met her at church a few days before he started school, so it was nice to have a familiar face as he ventured into the unknown. We bundled him up (snow boots, snow bibs, coat, hat and gloves...we definitely aren't in Arizona anymore) and took him to his new school--the Daniel Butler School. We went with him the day before and he got to meet his teacher and was given a little tour of the school (we learned that his school is over 100 years old, I think they told us it was built in 1899).

With the rough start that we had with his last first day of school I was holding my breath all day. We received an email midday from his teacher saying he was doing fine and seemed to be fitting right in. When I picked him up at the end of the day (this is another full day program), he was happy and informed me that he hadn't cried once.  He wanted to go back the next day, so I'd chalk that up to a success! He continues to love school especially math, gym, and art/music (I forget which one he told me was tied as his favorite with gym). He has gotten to celebrate 100s day, brought home a pottery frog face which he got to sculpt, glaze and fire in the kiln, and taught us all about real vs implied texture (which he learned about in art class).

A couple of weeks ago they got to have career day at school where they were allowed to dress up as what they wanted to be when they grow up. I asked Carder what he wanted to go as and he told me either a chef or a scientist that studies the body (I took that to mean doctor). He loved getting to wear his scrubs to school. He has been super interested in the body. A few weeks ago when Grandma Apostol was having gall bladder surgery, I reminded him to include her in our prayers just before bed. That opened the door for all sorts of inquiry which ended up with us on webMD/Wikipedia for the next hour learning all about he functions of the gall bladder, why its needed/what it does, etc. Then because the illustrated diagrams weren't enough for this little boy, we were on Google images for the next 20 mins because he needed to see what a real one looked like.

Brenn has loved picking Carder up at school this year and getting to play at the "playground". She gives me a heart attack almost every time as she pushes the limits climbing all the big kid stuff, but she has learned to hold her own out there (and is surprisingly agile).

Every year the school district screens the incoming Kindergarteners, so the current kindergarteners get a special day off. The local movie theater did a special screening of RIO 2 for the kindergarten kids, Carder thought it was really cool to see a bunch of kids from his class/school at the theater.

Carder had his first field trip this year.  They went to Davis Farmland. Carder had a blast. He came home and told me he had the best day ever. They got to check out/hold all sorts of critters including a real life python (Carder was quite excited to share this one with me and then let me know it was ok because the python was sleeping...eeek!)

They recently had a field day which they call "Color Day." There was a red, white and blue team. Carder was assigned to the white team. They got to play all sorts of fun games, his favorite being the one where you held the ball with the plunger (still trying to wrap my head around that one). Their elementary school goes up to fourth grade (yes that means middle school starts at 5th grade here...just thinking about that gives me major anxiety!) Anyway each kindergartener has a 4th grade buddy (or in Carder's case he has two), they periodically get together and read to the little kids during school. Carder was paired up with his "buddies" for a few of the color day activities.

Carder has been such a trooper starting kindergarten twice. Both of his teachers have let us know what a good friend he is and that he is a bright pupil. Our biggest thing that we've been told he needs to work on is listening to the full set of directions. Sometimes he will listen to just the first part of what his teacher says and jump into the task and not have gotten the rest of what he is supposed to do. We talked to him about this after parent teacher conference and he has come home a couple times letting us know how good of listening he has done and how much easier that makes things. One day he came home and proudly told me, with a grin from ear to ear, that his table was praised by Mrs. Levy at how well they listened to all of the instructions and that they were "like third graders." He is trying hard (Sometimes a little too hard as the last few weeks he has been way too fixated on "following the instructions." He has been constantly worrying about it, praying about it, telling us to pray about it. It was so sad to see him like that. Anyway we talked to his teacher last week because it was just constantly weighing on him and causing him to not want to go to school some days or get weepy at school...anyway we worked some stuff out with her and today received and email saying what a great week he had on her end (as was it at home) so we are hopefully going to end this year on a high note. We are so proud of our little guy!