Capt. Mondo's World o' Mondo-ness

Visiting Vanessa's Future School
Today was the day we got invited to visit what will be Vanessa's future school, and to meet her kindergarten class and teacher.

Come September she'll be going to Kew Beach Elementary School, located two blocks east of where we live. Vanessa is very excited at the prospect of going to a "big kid's school".

The classroom was bright, filled with toys, books and activities for the kids. Vanessa dressed up in a ballerina outfit she found, and sound found the crayon and paints and began making pictures, along with a bunch of other boys and girls, who in a few months time will be her classmates. Annie happily munched and tossed around a small box of bristle-blocks, and tentatively checked out the metal mesh screen in from of a faux fireplace in the classroom.

Her teacher seemed nice enough. She emphasized that her "philosophy" was that children should socialize first, then learn their ABC's later. Since Vanessa already knows her letters and numbers, I do worry about the academic side of things, but then I have to remember that we're talking about kindergarten here.

I was impressed by the facilities for the class: in addition to all of the books and toys there was an iMac sitting in the corner. And I guess this is also a sign of the times: I noticed a couple of signs saying which children had severe food allergies, and a small medical kit equipped with "epi-pens" were within ready reach of the teachers. Perhaps this was a common thing when I was going through elementary school, but I can't remember anything having to do with life-threatening allergies when I was going through the school system. Greater awareness of such things I guess.

The visit was punctuated by one proud parent moment: the teacher was asking all of the young kids their names, and most were shy and told their names in a small voice. When it was Vanessa's turn, she spelled out the letters of her name. I don't know if her teacher was impressed, but her Mother and Father certainly were! Erika confided to me later that she couldn't have felt prouder at that moment.