Kindergarten Here We Come

Kai had his 1st day of kindergarten today. He handled it like a superstar. He was excited and brave and happily waved goodbye when it was time to part. He looked very handsome in his school uniform- loving school uniforms so far!











When I was pregnant with Kai we 100% knew we didn't want him to start to kindergarten until he was 6. August birthdays are tough for what to do about school-now we have two kids with August birthdays. It mostly boiled down to we felt like it was a MAJOR advantage (academically, socially, and athletically) to be an "older" and we weren't in a rush to have him off to school. Selfishly we also didn't want to lose a year of time with him in our home. We knew family and friends that had done well and even loved being "youngers", but that just wasn't what we wanted to do. And yes we felt strongly this way well before ever reading The Outliers. Over the last few years we have learned that people have pretty firm and outspoken opinions about this one way or the other. This was just our opinion.

Last year we had him in a 3 year old preschool class even though he turned 4 about 2 weeks before the class began. It was great and we loved it for many of the reasons we listed above. It helped that his 2 best buddies who had birthday within 3 weeks of his were also doing the same thing. In UT you had to be 5 by the end of August to go to kindergarten so Kai would have really been the very youngest.

When we found out we were moving I spent countless hours trying to find the right preschool. It was one of my largest stresses about moving. We eventually narrowed it down to 2 preschools, we talked to friends and family of friends from Vegas, we visited schools and on and on and on. In the end we just didn't feel that any of them were right for Kai. He is a smart little cookie and he really was ready to be in a program where the kids were reading and doing more than the average preschool. So we felt stuck.

Finally I emailed some of the local kindergarten teachers to get their advice on preschools. We picked where we are living based on elementary school rankings so I thought they would be a good resource. Several email exchanges later with one thoughtful teacher we decided on a new plan. A plan that we had firmly decided we didn't want to do in UT.

Kai will attend 1/2 day kindergarten this year at one of 2 elementary schools that are literally so close that they share a parking lot. Our hope is that he will then attend full day kindergarten at the other school next year. We know all of the reasons why this might not work or be a good idea- they are the same reasons why we didn't want to do this plan in UT. We will evaluate at the end of the year and make an informed decision. But it is the new plan for now.

The last few months have been a good lesson to us in faith and being led. If you had told us 6 months ago that we would be living in Las Vegas and Kai would be starting kindergarten we would have thought you were crazy. That wasn't our plan and we are planning people. But things have fallen in place with much of this adventure in ways that we can't even comprehend or ignore. Perhaps it is a needed lesson on listening harder- even for the answers that aren't what we thought we wanted to hear.

So today we have a super cute kindergartner that had fun working on his homework. It was another reminder that the days can sometimes be long but the years are passing so quickly. How is it possible that we have a child in elementary school?