Marcus Goes to Kindergarten

Marcus Goes to Kindergarten!

Marcus started kindergarten (K1) the Boston Public Schools today. We are in the North Zone, and I did all the school visits while nine months pregnant last December, and then registered him for the lottery in January with a one-month-old along for the ride. Now, he's happily going to the Orchard Gardens K-8 Pilot School, a school which has gotten a lot of good press and has a really dedicated, high-energy staff.

The end of August was filled with events the city runs to get kids excited about kindergarten, and I think they worked. We're looking forward to a great year! Below, pictures from the assorted preparatory events--everything from making a mask and participating in a dance class at a library party; to playing with Alex and a thousand identically-dressed kids at the museum; to trick-or-treating up and down Washington Street in the South End for school supplies from local businesses (with a police escort); to eating hot dogs and chips in his new schoolyard, choosing his own new backpack from a pile ("I want pink," he said, definitively), and getting to meet his teacher, Ms. B, for the first time; to meeting the school bus driver and finding his stop; and, finally, to the first day of school (bringing cookies for the bus driver, meeting new friends, having Nurse Sue help him settle in, and emerging triumphant at day's end). [Edited to add: on day 2, Marcus got on the bus very happily and high-fived the driver, and then walked off the bus into his classroom with his "big sister" buddy from the bus; at the end of the day, he came home knowing how to spell his last name!]

Kindergarten kick-off party at the South End library