The Life of a Running Momma: Elise's First Day of School

Today was the first day of school for our school district. We are starting the year with 9 weeks in distance learning so this year's first day of school looked very different than any other. I'm so glad we have special, fun first day of school traditions that made the day special for the kids even though they didn't get to actually go to school. We started the morning with their wrapped book presents. Elise got "The Pigeon Has to Go to School" as her book. I read the book to the kids as they topped their waffles with all the special first day of school toppings they get once a year, on the first day of school. Then the kids read books while we waited for school to start. Elise was disappointed Carter had a class Zoom Meeting and she didn't. All pre-k and kindergarten students get to meet one-on-one with their teachers so Elise got to do that today instead. After Carter's Zoom Meeting I showered while the kids played for a bit. Then we started school. We did calendar, a read aloud, a vowel song, and letter practice for Elise. I had her make her letter of the day with Play Doh and when we were done she and I played Play Doh together.

Elise made a smiley face out of Nutella on her waffles.

When we were done taking pictures Elise asked me to take some pictures of just her by herself without Carter. She decided to pose by the flowers in our flower bed and went down the flower bed asking for pictures with each set of flowers. I wondered if it was because I always take her picture by the flowers at the church on her first day of school at the preschool or if it was just something that she thought of when she looked at our flowers. Regardless it was very cute and left me wishing I thought to get some pictures of Carter by himself as well. Due to the financial strain many families are under with the pandemic and the fact that we will be spending chunks of the school year in distance learning, our school district decided to make uniforms optional this school year. We had already gotten Elise uniform clothes at the outlets in Branson over the winter and Carter likes wearing his uniform so we went ahead and wore uniforms for the first day of school. It seemed to make it feel more like school for the kids but I won't make them wear uniforms for the rest of the time at home unless they want to. Elise was super excited to wear her special uniform dress. She's been asking to wear it ever since it appeared in her closet and she sure looked cute in it!

Elise invited Tesla onto her bean bag with her for read aloud time.

Next thing we knew Ty was home for lunch. The van is in the shop to get the sliding door repaired so we dropped Ty back off at work and kept the car so we could go to Elise's meet the teacher. We stopped off at the library to pick up a couple books we had on hold after dropping Ty off and then headed straight to the school. Elise was a little shy with her teacher at first but perked up and really enjoyed the meeting. She learned her teacher is from Venezuela and was excited to tell her all about the pets she has at home. The meeting didn't last long and I had a gift card to Starbucks so I decided to treat the kids to cake pops before the Meet the Maestra parade back at the school. We arrived for the parade early and waited outside the gates. Then we got to drive through and see all the teachers outside waving at us. At home it was math time. Elise and I practiced counting to 5 in Spanish and she completed a cutting, counting, and coloring sheet her teacher gave us during our meeting. We discussed the weather in Spanish for science and then we were done for the day. Even though it wasn't a full day of school, the kids were wiped! Elise told me she was so excited for school she kept waking up last night. Sweet girl! Read about Elise's first day of 3 year old preschool here and preschool here.