Junior Kindergarten Survival and Lessons Learned

This morning I put Little Monkey on her school bus for her 4th day at Junior Kindergarten. While my social media feeds were filled with back to school photos last Tuesday, I was thankful that we had two more days before she started her scholastic journey. Little did I know as I smiled smugly about my extra time last Tuesday morning, that 12 hours later I’d be scrambling to get her ready for the bus the next day! OPPSS! Her school forgot to tell us that they moved her first day from Thursday to Tuesday!

As we rushed around to prep, Little Monkey was bouncing off the walls in excitement. She was ready and no one could argue with that. I’m so glad we were able to enroll her in the pre-school program for a couple months, because in all honesty, that really made this first week of JK a breeze for us.

The night before the big day, these were the thoughts that went through my head :

• Wait…. school buses have seat belts rights? (no they don’t!)
• How much lunch do I need to pack? (don’t look at all the Pinterest worthy bento boxes!)
• Is three sets of uniform enough? (NOPES!!)
• I haven’t taught her about stranger danger…what if she gets off at the wrong stop? (gulp)
• Who needs fancy labels when you have a sharpie? (I really need to order some labels!)
• How many panties will she go through in one day with the new butt wiping skills?
• Why don’t we have more than one pair of white socks? And why wasn’t it washed?
• Good lord how early do we need to be up by for a 7:30 a.m. pick up? (apparently she can be up and ready in 15 mins!)
• What’s the worst that can happen? (luckily I don’t know the answer to that!)

On her very first day of school Little Monkey was escorted to the bus stop by the hubs, myself and my parents. It was a very special occasion! As we were doing our mini photo shoot as we waited for the bus, we noticed another little girl and her mom walk by us and the mom quickly asked if we were attending the same school. Am I ever glad she did that!! Not only were we standing at the wrong spot but the little girl quickly took Little Monkey under her wings and there wasn’t a single tear shed as Little Monkey waved goodbye to us. Kinda disappointing really!

We’re no experts but here are some lessons we learned during our 1st week at JK

• Trial and error is needed to find the perfect lunch box (I wasn’t able to put the one that our nanny bought us as a gift in  the dishwasher so I picked up a new one this weekend!)
• Talk to your child and get her comfortable being independent
• Prepare your child by going over scenarios such as potty time and lunch time (and saying hello to new friends!)
• Expect the worst and you’ll be over the moon when things go without a hitch
• Speak up and ask questions from the admin and teachers (I’m trying to get the bus stop moved closer to us!)

Her first day and every day after has been a smooth journey. She seems to genuinely love her experience and we’re so lucky to have a 6 year old in our building who attends the same school as Little Monkey. Pure luck but having a “friend” has greatly helped her JK journey. Give us a couple more weeks and we’ll share some of our favourite lunches (she seems to be eating WAY more than she does at home!). Now if only I can Interac money needed for various things versus trusting a 3 year old on a bus with it!! And of course…getting that bus stop moved before the cold winter heading our way!

Update : YES! I got that bus moved!