This September is the beginning of a new phase of life for this household as MyItchyBoy will be starting school. We often debate the ideal age for children to start school with friends in other countries, weighing up the merits of formal education versus keeping them in kindergarten/at home for longer.
Aside from the obvious dilemma between expecting to miss my son during the day and being impatient to have some more time for myself there is another side of it too. Our lives will also become dictated by term dates. Holidays will be cut down due to high costs. Long weekends visiting friends will be out and having a lie in on Mondays will definitely not to continue. I’m not looking forward to having to get up at the same time every weekday, rushing, making lunch and then legging up the road as we will inevitably be late most mornings.
I think MIB will be happy to go to school and will love all the new stuff to learn and do. However, I do wonder whether he can’t get that at nursery for another year whilst still being able to have fun on the days he doesn’t go.
Since the news last week reported that PE at school is not energetic enough, I am also concerned that I will be at the school gates waiting for a ball of energy to come bursting out, ready to explode. I know they have play times where, if memory serves me right, the boys will mainly spend the time running up and down as quick as they can. But that is not the same as walking up and down hills, or exploring the woods, fields or parks.
I am really happy that MIB’s nursery offers a Forest School morning each week and I am sure, come September, he will really miss it. Last week his kit was covered in mud (and no, that is no exaggeration), and he couldn’t stop talking about it all evening. The puddles, the bugs, the trees are all familiar and fascinating to him and he is learning so much. Not just about the world around us, but he is also learning about the need to buddy up with another child to walk nicely there and back as well as pay attention to the classroom leader in a different environment.
Getting him out in the rain is something I struggle with at home, where he’ll scowl out of the window, refusing to leave the house. However, at nursery, wrapped head to toe in waterproofs, with the excitement of the other children, he only has jumping in puddles on his mind.
I guess there won’t be so much kit cleaning for me at least, until he starts up some muddy field sport. But I am sad that this weekly fun will have to stop so soon.
Allergy note: MIB’s Yellow Cross bag was also covered in mud splashes as they have to take his Epipens out to the woods with them. However, it did wipe clean quite easily with a damp cloth.
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