Back To School and A Day With Alexander

After a couple of months of home learning the government decided to phase the kids back into public schools, starting with kids going 1 day a week. Our school decided to organise this by having the kids go in family groups. Eliza and Daniel's days were Tuesday. 

Eliza was very excited to be in her winter uniform for the first time and she looked gorgeous. We fortunately had bought most of the uniform a while back and we were just missing her stockings. But she was fine with wearing socks. I realised too as I was doing her hair that it was probably the first time in 2 months that her hair had been properly done and up.

Crazy chook!

 It was also Daniel's first day of winter uniform for Year 2.

And Alexander didn't want to miss out on a photo of him just because.

Today was actually going to be a special day because it was going to be a day about him - doing things that he wanted to do. I felt bad ignoring him or not really focusing on him during the whole home learning time so I was being very intentional about focusing on him today.

Ready for school

We walked up to school together and were greeted by some of the teachers at the gate, jumping up and down with joy, shouting hello. Daniel was really helpful and walked into the gate with Eliza holding her hand (because I asked him to). It was just for the first few steps and then he shook her off but I was glad that he helped her through the gate.

Alexander and I then headed back home. We stopped out the front to play Art Galleries. We were pretending to be strangers who stumbled upon the gallery as we were out for our walk. We spoke about the artworks we liked, guessed the artists names and tried to work out why the artists called the artworks certain names. Then Alexander ran up the driveway and came back down pretending to be himself, one of the artists. He then told me about his artworks. I love watching him and seeing his mannerisms. 

Next up we headed to the shops to get a hot chocolate and babychino, a special treat for him. We enjoyed sitting in the sunshine together on the front lawn while we had our drinks.

Babychino face

We had a bit of a play outside then we headed inside to have lunch.

Of course during lunch we heard the garbage truck so we ran outside. He had so much joy waving to the drivers. One of the drivers stopped to ask where the other 2 kids were. I love that they notice and care.

He was a great help with bringing the bin back up the driveway. Such big muscles!

We then made some jam drop biscuits. I tried to take a step back and let Alexander do a lot of the work to make them.

He got to lick the beater, something that the kids don't often get to do.

Rolling the biscuits

Making the thumb print

Licking his fingers at the end

 

Yum!

While they cooked Alexander played with his cars.

Then he wanted to play a game together.

He commented this was like a photo frame

And then it was time to head to school to pick up Daniel and Eliza. 

Garth had to come too

He seemed to have a nice day, just him and me.
The old 2 kids also had a great day at school. They loved that they got to see some of their friends and that they had their own teacher. They enjoyed doing the work at school. It was apparently the best day!

Once home the kids enjoyed riding their bikes on the road again.

So it was a great day! The kids were pretty tired by the end of the day but I'm not really surprised. It was the first day of being around others for a huge chunk of the day.

Wednesday was a bit of a full on day. I called James and told him that school broke our kids. They were short tempered with each other, they didn't want to do work for me, they had tears and shouting. It really wasn't a very nice time. I think it was because the kids were so tired and drained and they probably liked having some space and seeing their friends at school so they were taking it all out at home. But boy oh boy. Seeing their behaviour after just 1 day, it was a bit full on at home and I wasn't looking forward to them returning to school again because we were in quite a nice groove at home. But the following Tuesday they were to return.