1st Day of Kindergarten

August 27th, 2012 Primrose School of Centennial (Denver).

I don't want to say that the first day of Kindergarten is a non-event for Charlie, but it's kind of like every other time he moved up a class at primrose. It was a easy decision to keep Charlie at Primrose for private kindergarten. The last move to a different school was extremely trumatic for Charlie and Mom and Dad. We decided that while on treatment Charlie would be much better off in a familiar environment where the teacher to child ratio is better than 1:30. Primrose's Kindergarten program is accredited and the ratio is 1:12! This allows the teachers to work with him more closely and help us by providing feedback on his health and demeanor during the day. We talked to both of his teachers about his Leukemia and things to watch. Here is a list of things we learned at Kindergarten orientation that I am excited about:

• His Teachers are Miss Melissa and Miss Amie
• They go to the Smokey Hill Library twice a month
• They adopt a grandparent from a local assisted living facility (not sure about going here when ANC is down)
• Scholastic book club (I've missed this and love picking out new books)
• Every week there is a Star Student Award. The student is featured for the week and gets to take home a teddy bear and take pictures of him with the student's family and then talk about it in class. Kind of like a flat Stanley situation.
• They will Journal everyday
• One of the teachers is also a trained Behavior Therapist! This is similar to the child life specialists at Children's hospital.
• They use the Pyramid Model for discipline and development. From what I have seen it is very much in line with Parenting with Love and Logic and I think Charlie will do well. No more 1,2,3 or Jelly bean bribes!! http://www.challengingbehavior.org/do/resources/backpack.html

Overall Charlie's first day was great, but he did come home with a pretty nasty goose egg on his head from falling and landing on his forehead! Its funny and ironic that the first day of kindergarten he has an incident that probably scared his teachers half to death since we told them he doesn't clot or heal very well. I talked to Miss Melissa when I picked him up and she felt awful and was so worried about the bruising and possible concussion! The pictures above were taken pre-head wound.