First Day of School--Kindergarten

Congratulations to Candice B. for winning the Octonauts: Deep Sea Mission DVD!!

So today was Hazel's first day of school and she started kindergarten. I had big plans to come home and work on some great posts and crafts, but the truth is I had a hard time focusing. My great post is waiting for tomorrow. For today I am going to share a bit about what we did for the first day to be special and some first day traditions! First we started with the picture for the first day. I used one of the wonderful first day of school printables that Krafts and Kiddos shared and were featured at Sharing Saturday a couple of weeks ago.

Hazel asked me to take some pictures of her with and without Ducky. Above is one of the first ones. Below is one that showed more of her true feelings. (She keeps asking why she has to go to kindergarten and cried the night before quite a bit.) This is her first year in uniforms as well. She wanted to wear the dress one for the first day.

She asked me to put a note in her lunchbox as well as some Hershey kisses. I had done both of these at different times last year for her. I saw the adorable kissing hand pop-up card over at Buggy and Buddy. I loved it and since they did Kissing Hand activities the first day of school last year, I thought it was perfect. I had some foam hands and made it rather quickly since I ended up having a late night due to tutoring. I used tape instead of glue. To make it 3-D I took two strips of paper and folder them over each other. I wrote on the hand "An extra kiss for you!"

I stuck it and the Hershey kisses in the bottom compartment of her lunchbox which she did not open until we were in the car coming home. Oh, well. 

Our tradition is to go to the book store after the first day of school and let her pick a book out for the year. This year she chose two chapter books. Barnes and Noble is also doing a theme with The Day the Crayons Quit this month. There was a place to make a drawing or letter to the crayons and drop it in a box for a sticker and we found a fun place to be the blue crayon! Hazel made a picture of all the crayons that they provided colors for. They have all sorts of events planned at ours, so you should check yours and if you do not know the book, it is a wonderful book!!

So my focus this morning and up to today has been on just getting Hazel to school without a major breakdown on her part. It was not until I took the time to read a little gift from her teacher that I realized my own feelings about my baby starting kindergarten. Luckily I had been warned about how it would make me tear up. I read it to a group of mothers with older children at a parent reception and some of them felt a bit teary eyed over it. Here is what it was and said.

 

So after all of that I was a bit unfocused on life and just on getting through the day. I was glad to hear she had a pretty good day. Kindergarten is not as bad as she thought it would be. Hopefully it will get better for her! Just one more day of school for her this week since she is only going four days. We get to enjoy Fridays together this year!

Do you have any first day of school traditions?