Last night was Open House at Sunshine Elementary School.
This is an unusual year for us. We will, I believe, end up having kids in the school system for twenty-seven (!) straight years. In all that time, this is the only year we'll have three in one school.
Next year, Amelia will start middle school. The two little ones will be in first and second grade. Never again will we have three in one place.
At Open House, you look at your kid's room and desk and art work on the walls. You also sign up for Parent-Teacher Conferences to take place in November.
After years of this, I know the routine on signing up for P-T Conferences. If you don't get it done early in the evening during Open House, you'll be left with the last few odd time slots to choose from.
With three kids, I could visualize having to run over to the school three different times for three 15-minutes conferences. Silly. So, I had a plan. We arrived at Open House right when it started and hit all three rooms one right after the other, just long enough to sign up for back-to-back conference times. Then we went back to see the desks and stuff.
I found this a little embarrassing, as I explained to the first two teachers that "We'll be back."
But it worked. School gets out each day at 3:00, and we got conference times on November 5 at 3:15, 3:30, and 3:45.
This probably seems like a ridiculous lot of planning for such a little thing. I know I'll be glad I did it, though, when Conference Day comes, and I can get Grandma to watch the kids for one chunk of time, and we can get it all over with at once.
As for seeing the desks, it went as usual. Francie, during this, her first Open House, ran around the room hugging her friends and delighted to be able to play in her classroom without any of that structured school stuff they normally insist upon during regular school hours.
The teacher had put a "scavenger hunt" on each desk. The kids were supposed to do things like find their name in three places in the room, show their parents their favorite art work in the hall, etc. Since Francie was flitting about like a firefly, Lillie took charge of the scavenger hunt, hauling Francie back to read each item to her and make her do it.
Francie escaped while we were in Lillie's room and went back to her own room. Oh, well.
Lillie gave us the most thorough tour I've ever received from a kid during Open House. She explained everything in the whole room in detail. I felt like we'd paid for a tour of the White House. The kid will go far.
Amelia, 5th grade, showed us her room briefly and then escaped to the Book Fair while her teacher asked us how many other kids we have, a question that always makes me a bit nervous.
And Thus Went Open House.
