Hellobee

The way it works in Ontario, Canada, is that kids can enroll in kindergarten the calendar year in which they turn four, even if they’re three through September, October, November, or December. It’s up to the parents to determine if and when they want to enroll their kids — you can hold off on school until your child is six, legally. The program is full-day, but that’s also optional, as the Ministry of Education says that part is not mandatory.

For us, the thought of sending M to full-day kindergarten at age 3 gets a resounding YES! We’ve had her out of daycare since May and I think it will do her a world of good to go back to a more structured and social environment, and, let’s be honest, we don’t have to pay for kindergarten and I am all about cost savings. Some kids aren’t ready to start at age 3, but we, and M’s educators past and future, think she’ll do just fine. The worst case scenario is that she repeats another year of kindergarten which isn’t that bad at all.

We went through all of the registration and orientation visits at the start of summer, but now that kindergarten is quickly coming up on us I’ve realized we actually do need to do a bit of prep. I’m not stressing out about her going to school because it’s not her first time in care away from the home, and it’s in the same facility as where her daycare was so it’s more like restarting what we did before — but I got a letter from the school saying her soft start date is September 6, which kicked me into prep mode!

The checklist of what she needs is very small: a lunch receptacle; a bag big enough for a change of clothes, lunch, and any take-home notes or work; non-marking indoor running shoes; labels for her things. The lunchbox was probably the biggest deal. M is used to hot lunches at home, and had hot lunches provided as part of daycare, so she had her mind blown when I told her that there are no hot lunches in kindergarten. It became a huge anxiety thing for her to the point that she asked me to bring a microwave to kindergarten! I researched a lot and ended up buying an Omiebox which has a built-in thermal container for hot food. I had her try it out, because it’s a bit heavy, but she can lift it and open it no problem, so I’m hoping it’ll work well. We have yet to test the heat-keeping aspect of it, but it definitely fits enough food for her!

I also bought a Skip Hop unicorn lunchie which holds it perfectly, and can be clipped to the outside of her backpack…

… because she insisted on a Skip Hop leopard zoo backpack which is not particularly large.

M will not be taking the bus, because we live close enough to the school that we’d be halfway there when we got to the pickup spot, and she wouldn’t be eligible for bus service after kindergarten for exactly that reason, so I suspect Mac Daddy or I will be carrying her stuff anyway — but the lunchie basically takes up the bulk of the backpack space. Clipping the lunchie on adds some awkward weight but again, we tested it and she can handle it without complaint. I’m going to get a small snack container, possibly, but the snacks fit into the front pocket of the backpack with an ice pack, as the school requested we pack snacks and lunch separately.

Other than that, we picked up the matching leopard water bottle which I doubt she’ll even use, because it’s not insulated. We can pre-pay for milk online, so that’ll be her lunch drink and I know she’s obsessed with the water fountains outside of the classroom for cold water, otherwise.

Shoes are a work in progress — I need to take her out and actually get her to try some on — but we have labels for them, and everything else, on order from Lovable Labels, a Canadian company. I ordered one set with her full name, and one with “Lastname Family” for clothes that will eventually be passed to A (our last name is a first name so I couldn’t just use it in case it got mixed up!).

The usual seasonal stuff still applies: she’ll need winter gear, as always, and I’ve been working on weeding out the too-small clothes from her closet. I plan to drop off a big package of Kleenex for the classroom even though they didn’t ask for it!

In terms of non-stuff prep, I need to file some paperwork with the school — M’s vaccination record, and a copy of her birth certificate to show her age. It was suggested that we visit the doctor, dentist, and optometrist, and I may try to squeeze in an audiology assessment before we start. The final piece of advice which I’ve been terrible at implementing and probably, honestly, won’t manage before school, is to get her onto an earlier bedtime/earlier wake-up before school starts to not jar her too badly out of our lax summer schedule. Her soft start is a Thursday so I’m hoping the short week will help with that!

M is excited for kindergarten and doesn’t seem to have any jitters, so we are completely following her lead with that. We’ve been talking about what it’ll be like, going over the structure of the day, and reminding her of some of the manners that have fallen by the wayside over summer (sharing, anyone?). I think it’s going to be a good thing for everyone, and we’re feeling like we’ve prepped well!