On May 10, there was a pre-orientation for kindergarten at St. Francis. We prepped Harmon about it for a whole week and he was so excited. However, upon arrival to the kindergarten classroom, he went all shy on me. I swear he cut off circulation on my left leg, he was holding onto it SO tight! He has two friends in the class so I didn't understand the panic but, then again, I'm not 5 so ...
Anyway, he finally loosened up and the kids stayed with their new teacher-to-be while the parents went to the library for a Powerpoint presentation about some bigger aspects of starting kindergarten. Lots of good information but most of the time was spent on the drop-off and pick-up flow charts, which made my (and later Kevin's) head asplode. Of course, the whole time I was sitting there, I could NOT stop thinking about Mr. Mom - "North to pick up, south to drop off, moron!"
The most in-depth orientation will take place Tuesday, Sept. 6, the day before schools starts. Between now and then, though, there will be plenty of opportunities for us - and Harmon - to get more comfortable with things.
One of those opportunities came this past Friday (May 20) when Kevin took Harmon in for a very general and very quick kindergarten screening. The kids were alone with the teacher so I had to rely on Harmon for intel - this can be shaky at best. According to him, he had to ID parts of the body, do his numbers and letters, talk about reading, and make sure he knows and can spell his first and last name. I'm sure there was more but those are the things HE highlighted. He did well but we do need to work on the last name. He can write it for sure, he just hasn't needed to. He's the only Harmon anywhere in town so he just puts "Harmon" instead of "Harmon Bergquist" on everything. Kevin said he did pretty well - fortunately not a repeat performance of the orientation episode. I'm sure, by Sept. 7, we'll all be comfortable!
