Makenzie's Guide to a Good School Year

(By the way, I wrote this so so so long ago and planned to put photos up of their first day of school, but haven't been able to find our camera cord to upload photos since August :(- well today they got their school photos back and I figure that's as good as first days go. Hopefully we can find that cord soon so I can show pictures of summer fun, Kenzie's latest inventions, Kare and her friends practicing the Thriller dance for upcoming talent show, etc.)




















In honor of the school year beginning I thought I'd post some of the tips I've heard Makenzie (big 3rd grader now) giving Kendyl (our new Kindergartner) for having a good school year and a good first day.



Tips in choosing a backpack:

*"Don't pick a pink backpack. Every girl in Kindergarten has a pink backpack."

*"Don't pick a backpack with any picture on it. It's cooler to have it just be a design or one color." (Guess Kenzie wasn't going to use her "I love Troy" High School Musical backpack from last year in the 3rd grade. HSM is sooo second grade- sheesh mom)

*This first and second rule can apparently be overlooked when the Kindergartner really likes sparkly pink barbie backpacks. (Kendyl wasn't buying into these rules.)

*"Try to find a backpack with secret compartments that could hold a jet pack or like 15 laptops or something." (hmmmm) (Well after 30 minutes in the backpack isle at Walmart Makenzie finally found a backpack with a secret compartment in the inside big enough to hold some pencils. It was pink and had- you guessed it- a picture of some cute big eyed animal on it. When asked what about her first and second rule of backpacks she said that it was more important to be able to hide stuff in it. So I guess this one should be rule number one.

*Tip from mom about backpacks: Write your phone number on the inside of your child's backpack and not outside or else a clever little boy who sometimes walks home with your daughter may memorize it and call her afterschool. (Um- I don't think so. Maybe when she's 20.)


Things to Remember on the First Day:

*"Lay your clothes out the night before so you can get dressed in the middle of the night if you wake up. Pick clothes that show your kind of style, kinda fancy, but not too fancy- so all the kids will look at you and know that's your kind of style."

*"Listen to the bell at recess because if you are just having fun swinging for a long time and don't listen then you'll look around and see just big kids all around you and when you go back to class your teacher will be mad because you were at recess for an extra hour and she couldn't find you. It's really scary when that happens, but if your teacher sees you were scared than she wont get too mad and then it's kinda cool because you don't get in trouble and you got to play for a really long time, but don't really do it, because it's still scary." (This happened to Makenzie last year) :)

*"Don't go in the bathroom unless you look at the picture by the door because if you are just trying to go potty really really fast and run in a bathroom it might have boys standing up in there." (This happened to Makenzie last year too.)

*"Try to sleep the night before even if you're excited or else you might be so tired that you'll fall asleep on your desk." (Kenzie actually fell asleep on her desk this year and had to be helped to the office for mom to come pick her up, but not because of lack of sleep. Clever mom gave her half a dosage of Benedryl for her itchy mosquito bites from the night before. Benedryl makes mom hyper- it has the opposite effect on Kenzie and most people we've come to learn.)



How to Have a Good School Year:

*"Make sure mom makes you a lunch everyday and doesn't forget." (More like make sure you don't forget to be responsible and grab the lunch on the counter waiting for you time after time so mom has to go back to the school an hour later to bring it to you. Tip from mom: Make your child put their lunch in their backpack right in front of you so you know it's there. Also give the school some extra money for hot lunches just in case. Forget about teaching your kids responsibility. haha)

*"When you walk to school and home look on the ground a lot and see what cool things you can find like rocks and chunks of wood and string and sticks that make a V and wire and plastic and stuff so that you can come home and make cool inventions out of them. Hide them in a cupboard in our playroom or mom will throw them away when she sees them on the table." (Too true.)

*"Don't loose your library book and don't turn it in and forget that you did and think you lost it so you don't let yourself check out a new book for months and months and look all over the house and be sad because you can't find it." (This happened last year as well.)

*"Don't tell lies to your teacher and say that a different kid did something when really you did because that's double trouble." (This happened to Makenzie in 1st grade)

*"Sometimes it's fun to spray Halloween color spray in your hair before school so you can have cool colors and it's not just the same hair color as always. Then the kids will look at you and say, 'Wooa!' " (Kenzie did this probably 5 or 6 times last year, but we just looked in the school guide book they sent home and realized it's against school rules- oops.)

Well with all these tough/humorous lessons our Kenzie has seemed to learn from and all the advice she was giving Kendyl you'd think Kendyl would have been more scared for starting Kindergarten, but not so. :) We hope these tips help your cool grade schoolers as well.