And So It Begins...

Will started school last week.

He was pretty excited about the lunch box, less enthusiastic about the fancy Montessori curriculum.

We are sending him to a charter school that offers a Montessori preschool/VPK program.  We decided to send him full day so that he would not have change schools mid-day once I go back to work.  I worry it will mean a long day for him, though he would spend the same amount of time at a full day daycare, anyway.

I also worry that he will get bored considering he will be the oldest--or close to--in his class.  Will was born in September, so he is older than most of his classmates, some by close to a year.  The Montessori curriculum should allow him to move forward at his own pace, and thus reduce boredom, but after 3 days he is telling me he doesn't want to go to school because it is "bow-wing."

And lastly, I worry I made the most impractical choice for his school.  It is 10 minutes in the opposite direction from work.  Jack will need to go to a preschool nearby until next year, instead of the daycare he attended previously.  And the expense!  After looking forward to VPK as a break from expensive daycare costs, the half day tuition for the charter school is a killer!

Still next year Jack can attend the preschool program at the same school and Will will matriculate to the Kindergarten program at the school and bypass the lottery.  And the uniforms next year are adorable. And each class has a garden bed they tend throughout the year and harvest their own vegetables, and there is a strict healthy food policy so he is getting good stuff put into his little body, and the whole school is green, and his teacher makes me calm just talking to her, and, and....

I'm pretty sure we made the right choice, and if we didn't there is time to make a change.  But I hope everything works out.  I hope Will learns a lot about patience and kindness, I hope he learns more about self discipline and responsibility.  I hope his unquenchable curiosity is fed and encouraged. And most of all, I hope he has fun.  He has years ahead of him to cram facts and figures and methods and scores. I hope this year he develops a love of learning that we can build on over the next 17 years.