Loose tooth, school news

This was a big day for Jonathan, although he didn't really seem to be aware of it! First of all, he lost his first tooth today. Where said tooth is now, we have no idea: he may have swallowed it or it may just be lost somewhere. He didn't even notice but just continued with his day.

This is also the first day Jonathan went to school for more than just the morning. Today I met with his teacher, the vice-principal, and the special services worker from the school board to discuss how he's doing and to plan extending his school day. So from now until March break he's going to go for the morning, come home for lunch, and return until 2:30 p.m.; after March break the plan is to have him stay all afternoon. This will mean a lot of running back and forth for me, but it's worth it to see that things are going well thus far and that the school feels he's ready for a longer day.

We also discussed options for next year, and it was interesting to see how open-minded the school is about what Jonathan might do. I'd just assumed that he would either go to grade 1 (which will be his actual age-appropriate level) or repeat kindergarten--and either way, he'd need lots of classroom support. But there are actually several possibilities:
- he could attend kindergarten again, just as he is doing this year (going every 2nd day for a full day)
- he could attend kindergarten every day: i.e. if, like this year, there are 2 English kindergarten classes (a Mon/Wed group and a Tues/Thurs group), he would attend both and be a full-time kindergarten student
- if there is only one English kindergarten class, he could attend that class and attend grade 1 on the alternate days
- he could go into grade 1 full-time.

Everyone at the meeting was very positive about how Jonathan's doing and eager to make his school experience as beneficial as possible. This was great, considering I almost missed the conference meeting! Apparently everyone thought someone else was contacting us to tell us about the meeting--but no one had. I came home from an errand this afternoon at 1:20 and there was a message from the vice principal, asking was I coming to the conference at 1:00? AARRGGHH!! I ran out of the house, jumped in the car, drove to the school in less than one minute (no police car in sight, thank goodness), and raced inside. Fortunately the meeting was still under way, and everyone was very apologetic about not informing us. Oh well. Once my heart rate returned to normal, it was an excellent meeting, and we feel very happy about Jonathan's school environment.