Travis and I both struggled with the decision to keep Landon out of Kindergarten until next year. He turned 5 in July and was "age eligible" to attend, however the school district where we lives prefers Kindergartners to be at least 5 and a half when the school year starts. Landon was pretty close to that age so the school left the decision up to us. Let me tell ya, I wrestled with this decision for DAYS. I didn't want to put him in Kindergarten this year only to have his struggle and need to be held back. I also didn't want to wait a year and have him end up being one of the oldest in his grade next year (he will now be 6 when he starts). Ultimately we did what we felt was best for Landon and our family and today he started his official year of preschool!
Both Landon and Brynne were attending a preschool that we really loved, but we were beginning to feel like they had reached their maximum learning potential at that particular school. So we decided to enroll Landon in a private Christian preschool that is much closer to our house. We also decided that being only 3 and a half Brynne should really just stay home with me for another year.
Landon was pretty excited to start school today, and I was cautiously optimistic! He has had a tendency in the past to have anxiety when thrown into new social situations. He woke up in a great mood and was genuinely happy to meet his new classmates.
He even asked me if I wanted to take some pictures this morning! OF COURSE I did! Here he is telling Brynne how much he is going to miss not having her at school.
Landon 5yr 1mo and Brynne 3yr 8mo
Landon has to take a car with his name on it and "park" it by his picture each day so everyone can see who is there each day.
Landon's parked car behind his picture
Warming up by playing with some colorful dominoes
Sweet Preschooler!
...but then Brynne and I were halfway out the door and she said "wait Mom, I gotta go give Lan a hug and tell him to have a good time." Ugh, melted this Mama's heart.
Landon did great in school and was well behaved. He came home raving about his kind teachers Miss Kathy and Miss Shirley and said he had such a fun day. What a relief! On one hand I am so sad he is growing up so quickly, on the other I am so thankful he has found his confidence and there were no tears today! I can't wait to see everything Landon learns in this new program, I know this year will fly by!
1 comments:
You will NEVER regret that you made that decision with Landon.
Jericho turned 6 just before he began Kindergarten, and Judah will be turning six in just a couple of weeks and is currently in it.
We spoke to a lot of teachers of young children before deciding, and they all agreed that in general boys do better going into formal schooling older. And the good thing is...they'll graduate at 18 instead of the too-young (in my opinion) 17.
With Jericho, it also gave him a little bit of an edge being one of the taller kids in class, too. Had we put him in earlier, he would have been a little short-stuff through most of elementary.
My husband was adamant about doing this based on the fact that most guys hit their last big growth spurt right around 18, which could make all the difference in physical size and build for athletic scholarships. (My husband played college football, and graduating at 17 he hadn't finished growing to his full height and weight, and is sure that having been a state champ during high school he might have gotten a coveted full-ride college scholarship if only he'd been as big as he was his freshman year of college.
There are many reasons, but my favorite is that he'll be under my roof at least until he's 18...which I'm warning you goes SUPERFAST! =)
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