First Day of Catholic Schoolhouse

This is a "grandparent's post," meaning it contains way more details than normal people would be interested in reading!

Today was our first day at Catholic Schoolhouse! I'm not accustomed to getting the whole gang out so early in the day and keeping us out for hours, so I was planning the day ahead of all the things I needed to pack and making lists on my white board. I knew I couldn't have us all out the door by 7:00 in time for Mass, so Chris took John to Mass, then I brought the girls, joined John at 8:30, and Chris left for work.

Yes, that is a whole bunch of stuff to bring along for keeping the four of us out of the house for nearly four hours!

Mary stayed in the nursery where, you can guess, she was absolutely fine. She had thanked God in her prayers the night before for "getting" to go to the nursery the next day. Each time I came back this morning to check on her, she asked in a perplexed way why I had come back. Meanwhile, John had not been excited about this whole venture and was remaining cautious.

I kept Margaret with me because I didn't think she'd do well in the nursery at only 17 months old. Keeping her occupied and mostly quiet in a classroom setting was its own challenge! I brought a few toys. Her favorite activity these days is methodically putting things into a container, then taking them out of a container. So her favorite toy today was an old diaper wipes container filled with small wooden trains. (Above, she is "smiling" for the camera.)

John ended up having a "great!" time today. Each child is assigned to present for three to five minutes on a three-week cycle, and John was actually assigned to the very first day. He declined, saying he wanted to watch this time around. Since he is in a phase of knowing Everything about All Subjects and wanting to tell everything he knows, even to strangers, I had a sneaking suspicion that he would want to give a presentation at the last moment. He's currently wild about Beethoven, so I brought along one of his books on the composer. Once John saw the other kids getting ready to present, he asked me if he could do so too. And then he raised his hand and asked to go first! Of course, he hadn't practiced and had never seen a presentation, so he stood up there and said, "This is my book about Beethoven." And nothing else! I prodded him to share his favorite symphony or anything about Beethoven's life, since he could go on with colorful details for a quarter of an hour, but he didn't want to. I thought he'd be the only young child to give such a lack of a presentation, but most of the children in his class gave that exact same kind of presentation today. It was pretty funny.

Also humorous was observing the innate boy-girl differences apparent even at ages five, six, and seven. The boys struggled to contain themselves. Most of them were bouncing some part of their bodies at all times, making weird faces or weird sounds, and always seeking to move faster. Meanwhile, the girls perched sweetly on their chairs, coloring carefully inside the lines, and raising their hands to speak. Girls stood in lines quietly and still during transitions, or held hands together as they walked slowly. Girls were very helpful to each other, such as one girl raising her hand to say solicitously, "Ma'am, this little girl next to me needs some help." Meanwhile, if we turned our backs for one moment, the boys would be wrestling each other joyfully, caught up in a tangle of arms and legs, or seeing what happens if they poked each other with pencils. I couldn't stop chuckling about it all day. Plus it rather horrified me to wonder how on earth young boys do in regular schools, which are designed by women, taught by women, and are for girls to succeed. My only criticism of the schedule I saw today is that there was no recess, so the children were expected to be occupied quietly in academics for three hours straight, which was fine for the girls but I watched the boys simply falling apart.

I learned great tips for classroom/child management by watching the excellent mother-teachers today. I struggle to keep my two quiet during homeschooling and this one teacher had to keep 13 students in John's class quiet. Instead of her volume going up, it went down. She spoke to them practically in a whisper, to which the children became quieter and quieter. The day was full of useful observations for me to use at home.

We had a great day! And it should be no surprise that I was totally exhausted, we call came home and collapsed for naps, I spent the afternoon like a limp noodle, dinner was boxed mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and apples, and the dishes have yet to be washed or my day bags unpacked. Phew!