When your child starts school you wonder how they will cope, will they love school? Will they hate it? Will they make friends, or will they be a loner? I had all of those anxieties and more when Little Bean started school because she would be going to a school where she only knew one boy; our neighbour whom she went to pre-school with. We had both applied for our children to go to a primary school next to their preschool but unfortunately it was over-subscribed so we both were given our second choice schools.
Struggling to settle
Little Bean struggled to settle initially, especially since she is one of the younger children in her class and many of the others had been to preschool together so they had already formed friendship groups. Now that she is in Year 1 I have seen big changes in her, she LOVES school and she has formed a good relationship with her teacher. Thankfully she is also making some good friendships and is making good progress with her learning too,
Learning Incentives
Her new teacher has some really good learning incentives which get the children revved up. Little Bean will often come home and tell me that she has been awarded another house point or a monkey award. Yesterday she came out of the school gate beaming with pride and Leo the Lion in her hands.
Meet Leo the Lion
Leo the Lion is a cuddly lion who is given to the child that has been selected as Star of the Day and all the children love it when they get the chance to bring him home. It’s like having royalty coming home with you.
Leo’s Adventure
Prior to collecting Little Bean, I had already mentioned that we could go for a walk across the fields after school if the sun was still shining and the children were still excited by this idea so Little Bean decided to take Leo along for the adventure.
They had lots of fun puddle jumping and playing hide and seek . . .
They stopped for a rest on a bench, Little Bean showed Leo what a kissing gate was and then got a bit cheeky when we stopped at the park . . .
Little Bean said she thought these looked like ‘furry caterpillar flowers’ and wanted to know why we had an empty milk bottle on the doorstep?
Little Bean said that she thought perhaps Leo was a little bit peckish because he started trying to eat some leaves so we went home for some tea and to get ready for Rainbows.
This morning over breakfast, Little Bean wrote up Leo’s diary before returning him to school for the next Star of the Day. I wonder how long it will be before Leo visits again?