Maya's first day of Kindergarten

Maya spent the night the night with her mom so I went over there this morning. She was already dressed in her dark blue skirt and shirt. The school has a uniform policy. She was eating breakfast. She wasn't exactly her cheery self and Linda told me Maya had fought with her on "everything" this morning. As Maya was drinking her hot tea, I interviewed her. I asked what she wanted to be when she grows up. At first she said she wanted to tell stories and jokes to people. Then she said she wanted to be a librarian where she could read stories to people.

We went over the contents of her lunch box and made sure she know where everything was.

She wanted to drive in my car to school so she got in and off we went.

As we drove up the school, we saw lots of people in the court yard. Maya was very quiet. I could tell she was scared but she never started to cry. Linda joined us in the cafeteria where the kindergardners are to meet each day. Most of the kids there were having breakfast...which today was either cold cereal or a pizza square. Linda commented on that strange breakfast meal. I agree....piazza for breakfast seemed odd to me.

The other thing I noticed was the apparent lack of adhering to the uniform dress code. Their dress code is rather liberal, but I was surprised to see anyone wearing jeans. Perhaps the first day is a "free dress day". We'll see.

Maya's teacher came around the table and gave each of her students their name tags. There is another "Mya" in her class...but her name is spelled "Mya". Maya was pretty much quiet throughout the time in the cafeteria. I tried to get her to talk to this other boy in her class that didn't appear to have any parents with him. He looked rather lonely, but not really scared. We finally marched together over to her classroom where each student was to find their name on their desk and place their backpacks on the back of the chair and then have a seat on the floor. About the only time I saw any sort of smile from Maya was when she found her name on her desk. She seemed proud. It took a while to get all the kids sitting on the floor. Meanwhile the parents were standing around the edge of the room watching.

I had commented to Linda that Maya's brown hair with blond-ish streaks was the lightest hair color in the class. Most of the students looked to be of either Hispanic or Asian persuasion.

After all the kids were seated, the teacher started to address them...and then stopped and finally really acknowledged the parents. She said the parents were allowed to stay a little bit (emphasis on "little bit") longer. At which time I raised my hand and asked where the kids were to be picked up at the end of the day. She told told us outside on her ramp.

It was then that Linda and waved good-bye to Maya and left the room. Maya waved back to us. I didn't see her cheerful smile, I could tell she was worried/scared, but I know she'll be ok once the day got started.

So that was the beginning of her first day of Kindergarten.

I'll put up some of the pictures later....to be honest I didn't get very many good shots of her smiling as she appeared worried or shy in the pictures.