Kindergarten Week 1

We have officially completed our first week of kindergarten.  Successfully.  Happily.  No tears.

In case you're wondering, Ayden did pretty well too.  :)

If it wasn't quite obvious from my post about orientation, I was pretty impressed with our ASD room teacher.  I don't know her background, but she seemed to care about the kids she has a lot from our initial visit.

Our first week impressed me even more.

The communication pages she sends home each day that she calls a work in progress are amazing.  I know more about what Ayden did this week specifically speaking than I know about what he did in an entire year at preschool.  We had generalized notes from preschool, and often a teacher who didn't answer emails.  Preschool did wonders for Ayden and we really loved it there - but this is so. much. better.  To top off my week, I spent about a half hour on the phone discussing something that was sent home on the communication sheet.  Basically I just wanted to make sure a small problem was being handled right for Ayden.  Not only was it handled how I was hoping, but she then went on to explain how she made a small change in Ayden's daily routine that she thought would work better.  Which it did.  That minor change led him to work with minimal prompts at independent work stations by the third day of school.....and totally independently by the fourth day.

In gen ed, he's been working well in circle time and small groups.  He's also been playing with the other kids at recess. I haven't spoken with his gen ed teacher, but his daily reports are exactly what I'd expect - listening, doing what he's told, and transitioning between different times with prompts.

Our biggest concern to start out the year was how the cafeteria would work for Ayden.  We are absolutely insistent that Ayden be included and doing as much the same as his peers as possible.  We have always worked very hard with him to minimize his anxiety, but know that large groups with loud noises are triggers for him.  While we don't avoid those situations per se, we do give Ayden a lot of leeway when we put him in those situations.  We assumed it'd be hard on him for the first few days, but apparently that concern was for nothing.  He has been eating with the other kindergartners and doing just fine.  I guess Ayden decided he was going to be all grown up on us.  :)

So, that's the week in summary.  It really was fantastic to see him transition to full days and just do so well the first week.  I have a couple things we have to get set still now that his teachers are in the swing of things.  Hopefully getting his speech therapy going will be as smooth as the beginning of kindergarten was.  If not, mommy bear may have to start roaring. We'll all hope for the best though, I haven't been disappointed with his new school yet.