Kindergarten

 

Milo has made it through his first 2 weeks of Kindergarten!  His first week was only 3 days long, they started on a Tuesday and Friday was already a teacher work day.  This week he went all 5 days and this evening he is worn out.

 

The school is only 3 blocks away so we get to walk to and from school each day.  His school has a dress code which is kind of nice, no fighting about what to wear in the morning.  He can wear white, yellow, green or purple polo shirt and tan, blue or black pants and on Fridays jeans are allowed. 

 

The biggest concern I had about school was Milo's behavior.  His control issues have not disappeared, he gets quite upset if thing don't go his way and tantrums are not out of his normal behavior.  Milo has a male teacher which I think is good and he is very calm and matter of fact and a good authority figure.  Mr. L has a "Working Levels" system in his class and at the end of the day each the teacher let's me know what level Milo got that day. 

 

Level 3

Working hard the whole time and helping others

 

Level 2

Working hard most of the time

 

Level 1

Working hard a little bit of the time

 

Level 0

Playing most of the time

 

So far Milo has recieved two Level 1's, one Level 2 and five Level 3's including today's Level 3 + 3 star stickers.  I am very impressed with his effort so far. Several days he has cried when I have to leave (or rather when his class walks into the building and I don't) but that seems to be getting a little better.  The other concern I had and still have is his nutrition.  He can eat, at this point he chooses what and when he will eat which works out alright at home but not so much at school.  I send lunch with him every day, between his food allergies and what he is willing to eat it is just easier this way.   Kindergarteners eat lunch early (before 11) so he might not be hungry but who knows.  The problem is his behavior deteriorates when he is hungry but he won't say he's hungry and if he gets really hungry he won't eat at all no matter what you give him.  Afternoon snack is fresh fruit which he isn't great at eating but hopefully he will try out more fruit if everyone else is eating it everyday...eventually.  The kids does eat quite a bit when he gets home though so that's a good thing.  Unfortunatelly he has not been eating much lunch at all which means we will likely have to introduce tube feeds to school if he doens't eat more soon.  The thing is threre hasn't been a g-tube fed kid at his school so no one is familiar with it.  I did go through what to do if it comes out or gets pulled out.  The school nurse is there only 1 day a week but a health paraprofessional is on site full time.  She did seem kind of nervous about it coming out but I'm sure she will be fine.  If he does end up needing to be fed at school more training will have to be done.  Interestingly enough there is a little boy in Milo's class that has an NG feeding tube (the kind that goes through the nose into the stomach), if they thought a g-tube was scary I wonder what they said about the NG.

 

Academically he is doing well.  He does get OT, PT, Speech and Special Ed services so make sure he can keep up.  I'm not sure all of those services have started quite yet though.  Yesterday we got the homework assignment for this year.  So far it is learning to write letters and numbers, learning some sight words, reading stories and talking about them and counting.  Not too bad I guess I just hope Milo adjusts to his new sleeping schedule so he isn't as crabby in the evening :0)