Ella Starts School!

We passed another major milestone for Ella this September - her first day of school! In Ontario children start school the year they turn 4 (so all of the children in Ella’s class were born in 2015). The first year of school is called Junior Kindergarten (JK), followed by Senior Kindergarten (SK) and then they start Grade 1 when they are 6 years old. When I went to school, JK and SK were only half days, however times of changed and now Kindergarten is a full day program! School starts at 9am for Ella, and ends at 3:15pm. 

The first day of school here is always the first Tuesday in September, following the Labour Day public holiday on the Monday. The first week at Ella’s school was an ease into things for the JKs. Instead of starting with a full on first week, Ella had an hour long orientation with a small group of children and their parents on Wednesday, and then her first full day was on Friday. 

Andy and I were lucky to juggle things with work so that he attended the orientation on Wednesday, and then I took her to school on Friday. Ella had a good time at the orientation and Andy was able to meet her teachers - there are two teachers in each Kindergarten class, and they are both fabulous.


Ella was both excited and nervous about starting school. When I took her on her first day I was able to hang her bag and coat off in the coatroom, before she was swept away by her teacher while I held back tears. She looked very scared and nervous but followed her teacher without any resistance. What a momentous occasion, your child’s first day of school. I was definitely overcome with emotion!

I didn’t need to be worried though, as Ella seems to love school and is thriving there. Her writing and drawing has improved immensely and she constantly wants to know how to spell different words. She adores her teachers (there are two in each class) and has made some friends, who she plays with at the park most days after school. 

Ella’s school is actually my old elementary school, conveniently located across the street. My parents take her and Ollie for the walk to school each day, and then they usually go on a longer walk with Ollie in his little trike before taking him home for his morning nap. He absolutely loves going out on his morning bike ride! 

Now that his older sister is out of the way, Ollie is enjoying having my parents all to himself everyday. We’ve had a beautiful autumn and they are able to take Ollie to the park most days. I get updates via pictures from my parents through the day, and he always looks pretty happy!

He's also started swimming lessons which my dad does with him on Thursday afternoons.

The start of the school year has not been without its complications however! Andy and I are up super early for our long commutes into the city. For the first few weeks we wouldn’t even see Ella and Ollie, but then Ella started waking up super early on a regular basis (we are talking like 5:30am). She would normally refuse to go back to bed, although sometimes we could convince her to rest in our bed while we got ready for work. So we've had a very tired four-year-old at the end of the school day, resulting in some pretty epic tantrums. I remember reading something once about how children have to try so hard to behave in school that they just sort of erupt when they get home, and boy is that true for us! I’ve had to use my favourite parenting mantra “everything is a phase” in order to get through some of our evenings!

Recently Ella and I have started listening to a meditation as she falls asleep. I use the app “Insight Timer”, they have a kids section with a variety of different guided meditations and bedtime stories, and they seem to be helping her fall asleep. My hope is that one day Ella will start to use the breathing techniques to calm herself down when she gets upset, but I know it will take a long time before she is there. 

But on the bright side, as I have said, Ella seems to have transitioned well to school. It is a great feeling to know that she is happy and is growing, guided by some lovely teachers, while I am at work all day. And after school she gets to spend time with my parents (and more recently Andy, as he is not working at the moment… but that’s a story for another blog post!) For those things I am very grateful!