I Blew His Mind Away

The other day my son was sitting at my desk, next to the kitchen, as I was preparing him a sandwich.  He began singing a song about the months of the year that I remember singing in Kindergarten so I joined him.  His little eyes lit up and we sang the rest of the song together.  When we were done he asked me how I knew the song and I told him that I used to sing it in Kindergarten too.


I started telling him about the things in my kindergarten class that were similar to his such as sitting on the rug and tables to do work and calendars with the days of the week and recess with tricycles and balls.  Then we talked about things that were different like glue, his class uses glue sticks and I remember big bottles of white glue, and no computers.  It was a very interesting conversation and I think his little mind was blown away by the fact that I had once gone to Kindergarten and had a similar experience to his daily life.

I have received a lot of criticism for placing my child in a special ed classroom but based on what I have seen from the work he brings home and what he tells me his classroom experience is like, I would want him in there even if nothing was wrong with him.  The regular kindergarten classroom was full of drilling and learning things.  There was no play time, there was no recess, there were no fun songs and there were no days of the week or months of the year.  Seriously.  During open house we were told by the teacher that the new curriculum (probably Common Core) did not have the days of the week or months of the year as things they had to learn in class so we, the parents, were going to have to teach them.  Total WTF moment.  I am glad his kindergarten experience resembles mine, a time to continue learning through PLAY.