Today was the day! MissG started at school. She was excited and nervous. I was nervous but sure we'd done everything to get ready.
We had a quick visit to the classroom yesterday to drop off her Safe Hiding Place Tokens and a box of "fidget toys" (some of her favourite things to hold and de-stress with- a plastic toy snake, a wooden toy dinosaur, a soft toy kangaroo, a juggling ball, a slinky...).
We had chatted about using the toilet, needing to eat some of the food in her lunch box for morning tea and saving some for lunch time. What to do if she needed help with anything. We talked about the fun things she would do. We talked about who she would know in her class . We went over the Safe Hiding procedure so many times......
We were ready.
Most of the new Kindy kids went straight to the classroom but MissG and a friend of hers who also has older siblings at the school knew that the "right" way to start the day is to go to morning assembly, so we asked the Teacher if they could do that. They lined up with the other kids in their composite Kindergarten/Year 1 class, listened to the morning assembly then cheerfully walked off to class with the rest of the kids. Hubby and I wandered off to find something to do for 6 hours!
We did some dishes, some cleaning, a bit of grocery shopping, planned the budget for the fortnight, had lunch.... went for a drive to get us out of the house.... waited....
And when it was time to go and pick the kids up, we were told by MissG that she had a "great" first day! Yay!!
There were of course a few hiccups reported by her Teacher. She used her Safe Hiding Space once when she was a bit overwhelmed (which is not a hiccup at all- it is good!!), but a few tears and a moment of frustration over the way a rotating group activity was working.
Overall, though, MissG's report about her day was positive, and that is what we hoped for. If she feels she had a great day, I call that a big success!!