Remember when the Little Man was born? It seems like it was yesterday. Turns out it happened over 6 years ago. This morning, the increasingly Not-So-Little Man set off for 1st grade.
First grade is a special milestone, because it is the earliest grade for which I have a pretty clear memory of things. I remember snippets of preschool, and bits and pieces of Kindergarten. But I still remember the songs we sang in first grade. I remember my first grade teacher’s name (Mrs. Sapala) at MacAfee Road School in Somerset, NJ. I remember playing (and intensely disliking) soccer1. I remember walking to school with my best friend. I remember going to the school library, and discovering a book called The Nine Planets by Franklyn M. Branley–a book which set me on the course of becoming a science fiction writer, although I didn’t know that at the time.
Naturally, I wonder what kind of things the Little Man will discover in first grade that will set him on his own course. I don’t remember being particularly frightened in first grade2, and I suspect the Little Man won’t find anything to be frightened of either. He goes to a small school, Pre-K through 8th grade, but only one class per grade. That means that most of his friends from Kindergarten will be back in his 1st grade class. He’ll have a new teachers, but the teaching assistant from Kindergarten will be in the 1st grade class. I’m already excited to hear how his day went.
Today also happens to be the Little Miss’s last day at the Montessori school. Next week, she’ll start attending St. Ann, just like her brother. The Little Man started at St. Ann in Kindergarten. The Little Miss will start in pre-K4. Our kids have attended the Montessori school across the street from our house since the fall of 2010. So today concludes a 5-year period during which we had one or both of our kids in the school. This weekend, we met the Little Miss’s Montessori school teacher for ice cream, to say goodbye. It is the end of one era, and the beginning of another.
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