Hanging Out in Kinder

It was really hard to adjust to Rose starting Kindergarten for both me and Ken. It just felt weird to be without her all day and we missed her ton! So we jumped at any and pretty much all chances to help out the first month or so.

Ginger and I would stuff Thursday folders in the morning. It's the weekly announcements that come home each week. Technically we only got to catch a glimpse of Rose here and there because mostly I was out in the halls. But, it still made me feel connected to her and like I was a part of her kindergarten experience. Plus, I would steal a kiss and hug before I left. The teacher has a high school helper coming in now a few mornings so I lost that job in October:-( Seriously, it shouldn't be a big deal but I was kind of depressed about it for a few weeks.

Ginger loves going to the school to help out too. She is going to be a pro when it is her turn to go to kinder.
How could we not want to help out, looks at her cute little bubble face,
Ken signed up to be a computer lab helper. He goes to Computer Lab with Rose's class every Friday afternoon for an hour and helps the kids with their login and to get to the right webpages or games. The added bonus was that Ken took down Rose's user name and password and made that her login for our computer at home! Seriously a HUGE bonus because he username is her first and last name, but the password is her student number followed by about 7 other characters that would have no meaning to her or the other students.
Every once in awhile Ginger and I come in too. That is usually only if Ken is on a business trip or if there is a sub so she needs all the help she can get. This day their happened to be a sub. Ginger is just like the other kids and happily plays her game.
One last Bubble Face. Rose is very SERIOUS about following all rules at school. She always makes sure she is doing the exact thing her teacher asks them to do. I think they stopped the bubble thing about 2 months ago but Rose still does it all the time.
Which would be why she gets a gold star every week! Green is good behavior but a gold star is exceptional. She is the only student to have gotten a gold star every single week! About a month ago her teacher started switching to handing out Gold Stars every day, so basically she gets one 3 out of the 5 days and I have pretty much stopped saving them.
I've also been able to help out in Rose's class for special things. I read books to them for our Literacy day! That was fun to purposely stay in PJ's all day.

Another fun time was when they were doing their Gingerbread Unit. They mixed up a couple of batches of cookies as a class.

Then Mrs. Ganong read them a story.
Lined up to take the Gingerbread Men to the cafeteria to be cooked. When they went to look for them of course the gingerbread had run away!

Rose is standing next to Elvis, or as he used to be called "the boy with blue eyes!" She was smitten with him the first month or so of school but had no idea what his name was and everyday when she talked about him she called him the boy with blue eyes. Now she is just friends with him. Thank goodness!
I brought home all the extra Gingerbread dough as a surprise for our Gingerbread girl! She loved it! Ginger and Rose spent the whole afternoon cutting out cookies, wadding up the dough, re-rolling it, and cutting them out again. The tasted terrible after we cooked them but that could have been because of all the extra flour:-)


Ken snapped this on a day they were waiting to go to computer lab.
Then when they got home Rose couldn't wait to show us the Macarena that she learned in PE. She loves this dance so much, it's really fun to watch her shake it! Her other favorite thing in PE is jump roping, she has gotten so good that her PE teacher stopped us one day in the car rider line to make sure we knew just how much Rose loved to jump rope.



This is Rose's first "official" school field trip. They walked to the fire department that is behind their school. Parents weren't allowed to go because of space concerns but her teacher sent us a picture of the class.

Now I am helping out in Rose's class two days a week. I help in the morning one day and take a few kids out to give them extra practice with their sightwords, counting, or number recognition. On the day I help in the afternoon I listen to the story they have written and help them to leave the right amount of space and to sound out words they want to write.

I love being in her class with her for so many reasons. It helps me to help Rose in her learning, I get great teaching tips from her teacher that have helped me to be a better Primary President, and lastly I just like to be with her. We think it is so important to be involved in our children's education and for them to know that what they do for their "work" is so important. And teachers always need extra help.

This year was by far my hardest year to get involved in one of our child's classroom. I think mainly it was because her teacher is pretty awesome and a pro, but also part of it was that she was figuring out where she needed help and getting the children adjusted to the school day. I had to ask her about a million times, not really, but probably about 8-10 times of asking when I could come in and help. I can see now how some friends of mine have gotten discouraged and think there isn't really anything to do in the classroom because a teacher turns them down once. But, I just have to say ask one more time, and one more time after that, and don't take it personally, like I did a couple of times. Which was really truly lame of me because Rose's teacher also happens to be the mom of one of Darin's best friends. It is so worth it!