These Days: Zack

These days Zack is adjusting to First Grade. It's pretty different than kindergarten for him. For us, we see playful lessons and minimal homework. But for him, he's sitting at a desk instead of a carpet square and expected to do lessons most of the day instead of just a little of the day. We see a classroom discipline system that's essentially the same with positive rewards and mild negative consequences. But he sees a stricter system and not much time to talk to his buddies.

What we both see is a good class and some good friends! We have started letting him go in earlier - sometimes thirty minutes before school starts when everyone goes to the cafeteria before they are allowed to go to their classrooms. It always seemed too early last year - we tried to keep the length of his school day from getting longer than it needed to be. But this way he can see his friends and talk to them before they go to the classroom (where they immediately start their lessons without any play time). We are starting to carpool after school, which is leading to some short playdates on a regular basis, which seems to be a great thing.

We also let him join some extracurricular activities: Cub Scouts and Chess Club. We've only been to one meeting of each but I think they are going to be a good fit. We're still waiting for our Tiger Cub den assignment but Zack's already asking how he can earn badges (they are actually belt loops at this age). Chess Club is pretty interesting - they have 110 kids! Almost all of them are second graders and older but Zack and a buddy are some of the few first graders and I think they'll be able to hang.