Grandparents' Day

Well, today was Grandparent's day at Rachel's, David's, and Rose's school. Since I can't be in three places at once it was decided that I would go to Rachel's room. Her other grandparents went to David's room, and then a family friend, Brett, went to Rose's room. I also sneaked into David's room because it was right next door to Rachel's room. I never found Rose's room, and by that time my knee was bothering me so much, I decided it was time to leave the building.

That's me with Rachel, and theother picture is when she was showing off an "O" she made with Play Dough. She also did some dot-to-dots with alphabet letters, instead of numbers.

Prior to the time set for the grandparents to arrive (10 a.m.) her teacher had a reading time with a big book. When it was time for the grandparents to see the class, it was time to go to their various team corners and work on those items. One is a painting corner, another was a puzzle corner, Rachel's group was making letters with Play Dough. Rachel made an "O", an "X", a "W", and an "A". The "O" was the easiest and her favorite letter to make.

Boy have times changed since I was in kindergarten. We had desks. Each student had his/her own desk. They have tables where five or six students sit. Mostly the children sat on the floor. We NEVER sat on the floor. What I saw today made me shudder -- the way they flopped on the floor banging their knees -- and me with such painful knees from gymnastics. I can't imagine what kind of knees they'll have by the time they're in their 20s. But I digress.

I don't recall that we ever had any grandparents' days, but I think we must have had parents' day. I recall having to clean out my desk at school -- at least for the three years I was at Downing school. After that I don't recall any "clean-up" times, but it may be because we were old enough to not have to be reminded to clean out our desks.

Anyway, we had to clean out our desks. The bulletin boards were decorated with our work -- I didn't see any of Rachel's work on any bulletin boards in her classroom -- or any children's work on the bulletin boards for that matter. I do recall that definitely our daily work was posted on the bulletin board -- but only the best got posted -- which made us work harder at being neat and tidy. It was a privilege and honor to be posted. The work was posted for one full week, then it was replaced with another paper, either by me or one of my classmates.

I have the most vivid memories of Downing School when I was in first grade. I don't' know why that is. I was in the second grade classroom, but I was a first grader. I did first and second grade work. I loved tallying long lists of sums , which was a second grade chore, but I butted in because I liked to do it. I loved doing cursive writing -- which started in second grade, not first.

I noticed that now they start the kids right in with cursive, they skip the printing, which I think is kind of nuts -- because whenever you have to fill out a form they ask you to "please print." But I understand that it skips a step. They do the cursive without the connection of the letters. In other words Rachel would sign her name, like R-a-c-h-e-l (without the dashes) and each letter would be in cursive (I couldn't find that font to show how it would actually look). Interesting.

Back to my parents' day. I know my mom showed up. My mom always came to anything that had to do with me when I was at Downing School. I don't think she came to much when I was shifted over to Bingham. We had no car, and it was quite a walk. I rode a bike to school most of the time. Dad never came. And I don't think she came to anything when I was in high school, except maybe one science fair.

So now we have grandparents' day at school which includes special friends of the family or other relatives they want to come. Neat!