Meet The Teacher

Monday night, B man did something he has never done before.  He attended Meet the Teacher at his elementary school.

Meet the Teacher can be very chaotic so we've avoided it.  We've always taken him to meet his teacher the day after Meet The Teacher.  This gives us some time to visit and for B to look around the room.

B's awesome principal sent a letter to each kid this summer telling them how excited she was for school to start.  She also included a flyer about Meet the Teacher.  B wanted to know what it was so I explained it to him.

Me: "It's usually pretty chaotic so we skip it."
B: "I like chaos. I want to go."
Me: "Not this kind of chaos.  It's loud and lots of people."
B: "I love people! I want to go!"

Ryan and I talked it over.  I was against it.  This is a stressful time of year for me and I didn't want to add to it with a public meltdown (by either B or me).  But, Ryan had a great point: he wants to go, let's let him try.  We need to start letting him do some hard things.   We decided to go to the last session, hoping there would be fewer people.  I emailed his principal to let her know.

In addition to meeting his teachers, B would be meeting his new behavior specialist.  B really loved his former behavior specialist.  Thankfully, we'd been able to have lunch with him a few weeks ago to say goodbye.  Another blessing is that Ryan played baseball against the new specialist.  They go way back and he's a great guy.  I was able to talk to him at staff development about B.

When we walked in Mr. T, the new behavior specialist, was the first person we saw.  We introduced B and B gave him a big hug.  It seems like they hit it off!

Our neighbor went to an earlier session and had already texted me about his teacher but we let B discover it himself.  One of his teachers, Mrs. McDermett, from last year moved up to 3rd grade and B was ecstatic to find out that he would have her again! He has a new teacher, Mrs. Barnes, for homeroom, ELA and Social Studies.  He'll see Mrs. McDermett for math and science.

He has a lot of friends in his class.  Like I wrote yesterday, he already started recruiting some into the Legion of Lizards.  

I loved seeing B hugging everyone at Meet the Teacher.  He was so excited! He told Mrs. Barnes, "I really loved Mrs. Sirois (one of teachers last year who retired) but I think I'm going to love you more."

He's really looking forward to Genius Hour (a time when kids get to work on projects of their choice).  He's already making of list of things he can do during Genius Hour.

I slept like a rock after Meet the Teacher. I was so relived he'd be back with Mrs. McDermett.  Last year was the best school year B's ever had! And I know this year will be just as wonderful!