1st Grade: Amelia's Perspective

Amelia hasn’t said much about how she likes first grade. When pressed, she will say her favorite thing is one of her block activities, usually the one she had that day (gym, art, music, computers or library). Sometimes she will say recess, sometimes lunch, but never something she did in her classroom. Her teacher this year is known as one of the tough but fair ones, and she was recommended by her kindergarten teacher who said she’d be good for Amelia both academically and for discipline. Amelia’s handwriting has improved drastically and she comes home with “excellent” behavior almost every day. (Two “good” days so far.) She also comes home a lot less messy than she did in kindergarten. She still seems shy interacting with her teacher. She gets all shy and won’t answer Ms. Melanie when asked if she is having a good day and Amelia seems reluctant for the interaction required to turn in her folder every morning. I don’t think teachers should be a child’s “best friend” so I am not yet too concerned about this long warm-up period, especially since Amelia seems to be doing well at school otherwise (100% on her first spelling test!).

Last night we got a little more of her reaction to first grade. At dinner she suddenly said, “I feel like school is my home during the week and I am just treating my house like it’s a hotel.” After expending energy trying really, really hard not to laugh and fall out of my chair, I said, “But at least I get to pick you up every afternoon and you can come home and play.” She reluctantly agreed that it helped, but she much preferred the weekends.

She is definitely a child who would play every day if she could, all day long. At night she often tells me that she can’t go to bed yet, there are still things she wants to do, and she isn’t just making excuses because she can tick them off, too! She clearly runs out of day before she runs out of ideas, and this was happening during summer break, too. Poor thing. I hope she always has such an enthusiasm for life and the things that interest her.