Tuesday, September 1, 2009

James' First Day at School!

The big day finally arrived! Today was James fist day of school at the Monkstown Educate Together National School. It was a nerve racking morning for me for obvious reasons but also because myself and James got a tummy bug yesterday and while I was not so bad, James threw up numerous times during the day. This left me wondering last night would he make it to his first day of school at all. I said we would see how he was in the morning as from previous experience I know tummy bugs are usually a 24 hour thing with kids.

When I asked him how he felt this morning he said he felt great and asked when was he going to school. On that note I decided to go for it knowing it is only a three hour day (for the first two weeks). So here he is making shapes as he leaves the house this morning.



Here he is outside the school before he went in doing his famous eyebrow move.



When we arrived we qued up with our class group and were brought into the classroom. In the classroom there were tables pushed together to make four large tables which each had lots of toys in the middle. This was very enticing for all the children. I stayed with him for a few minutes and then said goodbye and he just waved and kept on playing. So it went really well.

I collected him three hours later and he was in great spirits. He said to the teacher as we left "I really like this place." Here he is as we left the school, again posing.


On the way home he told me many fanciful tales of things that happened. It was hard to decipher which were true events and which were not. I don't think the story about watching a video called "gun wars" was true, nor was the story of the boy slapping him in the face. I think the stories about colouring, and learning to tie shoe laces were definitly true. However the story of catching bugs outside, I really can't figure out if that's true or not. Do kids get to catch bugs on their first day of school? If so I think that's cool.