A good question is, "What was the best/most fun thing that happened today?"

Do you know the names of any of the kids in the class? DD and I played a game where we went back and forth naming the kids in the class. (I noticed some of the names during the classroom visit before hand.) Then I told her that her job on the first day was to come home with two more names. So we had the names to talk about. I also asked her who she sat next to at lunch (she didn't remember.) She did tell me that she killed a mosquito on her teacher's leg during recess.

We received a printout from DD's kindergarten teacher that said today we read the following book about starting school, the students took a tour of the school, we discussed what rules we wanted for the classroom and traced our hands around the rules to show we agreed with them; we had snack; tomorrow we will be doing blah-blah....The teacher explained that she would be sending these printouts home every other day or so. It was at least a way to talk about what happened.

PP, my child was terribly sick for the first day of K. 103 temp. Ugh. This was a couple of years ago during the H1N1 outbreak. Thankfully, he didn't have H1N1, but it was a virus with high temp. The temp was normal the next day. I was far more devastated than he was.

Hopefully your child will improve greatly today.

I had a fear of this, so I took DC out for a chocolate milk treat (at starbucks, withouth his little sister so he felt really like a big kid!). I got a lot of dont knows and shrugs, but we had plenty of time for lots of open ended questions - followed up by very specific ones (did you sit in your chair or on the carpet to read the story?). I feel like I have a sense of the first day, though there's still a lot of mystery


Here's my K woe: DC got sick (fever, vomiting) last night so now has to miss day 2!!!! I know in the grand scheme of things, it's no big deal, but it feels like such an important day when they're all still learning their way around, how to do thigs, etc....

Totally normal. I had zero clue what was going on for most of K. My son also rarely seemed to eat his lunch throughout that year. Both factors improved immensely in first grade.

Ask if anyone got it trouble...kids usually like to talk about other kids getting in trouble...

Agree. Bedtime with the lights low or out. Curl up.

Otherwise, it's:

Who'd you play with?
No one

What did you do?
Nothing

Did you read any good books?
No

Any bad books?
No

Etc., etc.

It doesn't get better with age.

Anonymous wrote:try talking to him/her at bedtime, thats always when i get the best info

True, my kids get down right chatty when it is bedtime. I think it is a combination of being excited and not wanting to go to sleep and hoping talking to me allows them to stay up later. The key is to build in 10 minutes talk/wind-down to when they start getting ready for bed.

try talking to him/her at bedtime, thats always when i get the best info

I had two older ones starting today (we just moved over the summer). It's even hard at their ages to gauge what's actually going on. Don't worry. You will be able to tell more in a few days.

"So did you have fun?"
"Yes!"
"Did you make any friends?"
"Yup I did"
"What were their names?"
"....I don't know"
"What did you do today?"
"I don't remember"
"What did you have for lunch?"
*Shrug* "I forget"

*SIGH*

My son didn't say much about his first day of kindergarten, either! I tried to ask open-ended questions..but it was like having a mini-teenager. He said he liked it..he liked the lunch...and almost nothing else...

Yup, normal. You'll get a sense of the schedule at back-to-school night. My kids are as tight-lipped as they come.

So after the large build up for first day at K, my DC comes home and I'm not really sure what happened today... Is it normal to not really have a sense of what is happening in the class? I mean DC says it was a good day and new friends were made but I'm disappointed as I feel like I have no clue what actually went on in the classroom.