First day in the 3-5 room

While many parents are excited and stressed about the first day of school today, I was excited about Tristan's first day in a new room at his daycare. He has graduated from the Toddler room and is now in the 3-5 room. It's the big boy room! Kids ages 3 to 5 attend this room. Apparently, some of the kids in the room even attend kindergarten as well. Maybe this has changed now that kindergarten is a full day.

Tristan will be 3 years old in less than 3 months. Because he is ready now and there are spots available in the 3-5 room, he is starting this program this month. September is a big transition month for daycare because many of the kids in the 3-5 room are starting Kindergarten or Grade 1 and will leave the daycare. That allows all the rooms to shift upwards and free up space for new kids to join the daycare. Tristan and another little girl from his toddler room moved into the 3-5 room today.

When I dropped Tristan off this morning, he was excited. He gave his lunchbox to one of the staff members, grabbed a book and sat on the couch by himself looking at it. He just made himself at home. Just like that :) I noticed the other little girl from his toddler room was not coping so well. I am not sure she was quite ready to come into this room but if she didn't now, there may not be space for her for months. I think she has only begun potty training and typically, you need to be fully potty trained to come into the 3-5 room. She looks much smaller than Tristan. When her dad dropped her off and left, she cried. She has been to the daycare for a long time too but the new room was overwhelming to her I guess. Poor girl:(

One of Tristan's best friends is in the 3-5 room. We have talked about the 3-5 room change for a long time now and he loves that "he is a big boy now!" In this room, Tristan will learn more independence. There are no more individual daily report sheets. He may not be reminded to drink water and will have to learn to ask for water more when he is thirsty. In fact, when I picked him up today, the second thing he said to me was "can I have some water please?" It makes me wonder how long he has been thirsty for. It was so hot today too.

In the toddler room, there was one staff member for every 4 children. Here in the 3-5 room, there is one staff member for every 8 children. In kindergarten, there may be one teacher for every 22 children. The program in the 3-5 room will prepare Tristan for kindergarten and I am thankful for that. It's a huge transition, especially if a child has not been to daycare before. Tristan is doing great so far and I'm not worried about him at all. They say that some kids have a hard time transitioning from being one of the biggest kids in their room to being one of the smallest kids in the new room. A lot of Tristan's friends are already in the 3-5 room and he also knows the staff there. Even if he hasn't been in that room a lot, he is familiar with the people and has been in that same building since he was 13 months old. This gives him a huge advantage in adjusting to the new room. It's so hard to leave your child at daycare for the first time. Some of the parents are going through that right now in the 3-5 room. I feel for them and thank goodness we won't have to go through that pain again.