Finley Visits Planet Kindergarten

After months of anticipation and several readings of Planet Kindergarten last night, Finley was finally ready to board the McCarthy-Towne ship and meet his new commander and crew mates.

 Finley will be going to the Extended Day program before and after school this year, which takes place at the administration building next door to his school.  He was all smiles at drop off and while I felt it was a little anticlimactic for me, I suspect that it was the ideal situation -- no tears or any concerns of any sort.  He waved me goodbye at 7:15 and that was that.

However, just before my students arrived, I checked my personal email and came across something that truly melted my heart --

Hi Allison,

This is Taran's dad Mike - my wife and I met you at t-ball in the spring.  Just wanted to mention, we dropped off Taran this morning around 7:15 at extended day, and he was a little nervous but he saw Finley in there which helped.  And Finley did an amazing job showing him around the classroom, showing him some toys, he was very animated and excited and Taran quickly settled in and seemed to be comfortable.  Yes, we stuck around for a few minutes and watched most of this from outside through the window :-)

Hope your drop-off went well this morning too, and please give Finley a huge Thank You today for being such a great friend for Taran!

  Mike and Kristen

I was so thrilled and proud to read this note!! 

I was up to my elbows in my own kindergarteners (our 2nd day of school) all day, but my thoughts often drifted to Finley and wondered what he was up to. Before I knew it, it was time to dismiss my class and then I jumped in the car to get him.

I arrived at Extended Day and he was digging in a bucket of legos with the same friend from this morning's email, but he jumped up to give me a huge hug when he saw me! He said he had a great day and that his class had music today.  On our drive home, I got a few other details about his day and it seemed like all went quite well.  He said he even went across the monkeybars two times all by himself!

The highlight of his tales from the classroom was when he told me that his teacher asked the class to draw a picture of something that they did by themselves or with friends or family.  He said he drew a picture of the time that Dan got pulled over by a police car on Route 2 for going too fast.  This particular incident happened nearly two years ago!  Ha! Aren't we the proudest parents?? He said he drew the police car, Dan's car (with a green since there wasn't a gray), Dan, the policeman, and himself.  And as Dan pointed out when he got home and heard this story, he did NOT get a ticket, just a warning.  How hysterical that the one memory he reached for was this one?? I suspect he just wanted to draw a police car and therefore this story fit the bill.  Genius.

All in all, we are thrilled that he had such a positive first day at school.  179 more to go :)