Kindergarten!!

Conner started Kindergarten last week. We never thought the day would come. We are so proud of how far Conner has come.

Let me back up...2 days before school started, Conner lost his first tooth. He was a little freaked out when it was loose, but was really excited when it was out. He was more excited to have the tooth fairy leave him a surprise at the foot of his bed (we can't do under the pillow because Conner is a crazy sleeper!). The Turtle was protecting his tooth for him until the tooth fairy came to get it! 

So Conner started school after Labor Day. He was excited to go... I asked if he was nervous and he said "NO". We were more nervous than he was. We met with his teacher and saw his classroom a few weeks before school started just so Conner would know what to expect. The first day of school came and Conner did great.

For a parent, walking your child in to a class with 25 other kids is a little nerve-wracking. It's hard to believe that one teacher can teach all those kids at all the different levels that they are at. But she is an excellent teacher and has tons of years of experience so she is definitely the right teacher for us. She is very kind, yet firm.

After the first few days, I found out Conner was telling the teachers that he couldn't write his name. So we went home and wrote it and brought it back to school. Now they know he can do it, so now he's doing it. The next day they told me that Conner said he couldn't identify any letters or letter sounds. He can do that too. So the following day, they took him in a quiet room and redid the testing and he showed them that he knew everything. There is a lot of distraction in the room and a lot of noise, so hopefully they will be able to continue to work with him on this. They have suggested headphones for him for some of this work, but I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Conner was totally hooked up with services from the first day of school. I am so grateful for all the people at preschool that helped us get him situated in Kindergarten. He is getting speech and OT both twice a week and hopefully he will start getting Adaptive P.E. He also gets Resource Room 30 minutes a day which is just 30 minutes when he gets some individual attention to work on whatever the class is working on but with one on one assistance. He will also start getting some Social Work too to just help him deal with the times when kids can't understand him or when he gets too close to people (Conner has NO boundaries!). We have been so happy with everything so far and the transition has been WAY better than we expected...not perfect, but very good! The staff at Conner's school has been 100% amazing. Every person we have come in contact with has been great, from the principal, teacher, paraprofessionals, janitors and lunch ladies. I am thankful that we are where we are this year.

We are trying to get Conner all situated in everything else too. He is so tired after school so we don't want to do too much, but we are continuing private OT, PT and Speech (at least for now). And Conner still wants to do Friendship Circle but we had to switch nights...he will now go on Mondays with the boy volunteers (first time we have been with boy volunteers...he likes the girls, so we will see how this goes!). It's hard for me because I liked the social time with friends on Tuesdays, but it's what we have to do at the moment for Conner.

So Kindergarten is under way. And it's going well. Conner is exhausted most of the time but he is listening (most of the time) and doing his work (most of the time). I am so so so proud of him. He is an amazing, wonderful, feisty little guy!