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It is hard to believe, but Keegan is starting “real” school this year.We were all excited, and a little nervous about this big event. Even if Keegan spent 4 weeks at the Montessori school, he moved to the “big kids” side for the school year, so it is definitely a brand new beginning for all of us. I was a little concerned about Keegan’s inability of reading and writing, since most of the kids in his class are already able to do it, but I trusted the teacher’s judgement.

On his first first day, September 3, we posed for a celebratory phot0: we will try to do it every year, to see how much he grows in 12 months. He is very proud of his new Monsters Lunchbox.

We all drove to school, since we wanted to see his new classroom and meet his new teachers. We met Ms. Christine, who is originally from a town close to Stuttgart, Germany, as I later found out. Keegan was extremely shy, and would not go outside to play, so she asked him to help her distribute name tags. It was nice of her. We left him with some worry, but we knew he would be fine.

I picked him around 3.30 and he seemed OK, all considering. He was still a little shy, but he did not seem upset. I met his second teacher, Ms. Sandra, a couple of days later. It turns out this is a k-1 class, so there are kids in age ranging from 5.5 years to 6.5 years. This is a definitely different experience for us, since Keegan has almost always been among the oldest ones, and in this new class he founds himself among the youngest. There are 23 kids in the class — 14 boys and 9 girls, as Keegan likes to remind us — which is pretty amazing in itself, since the average class in kindergarten has 25/28 kids, and ONE teacher.

The adjustment has a been a little difficult, for all of us. Keegan is struggling understanding that he needs to focus on his work when he is in school, and he has a particular difficult time not goofing around, or talking, or moving around. This is all normal and expected. He is now in a big kids class and must learn to how to control himself. For the first time, he gets to bring a backpack to school, and he is so excited about finally using his McQueen’s backpack (a present from a couple of years ago). It is pretty huge, but he carries it with style.

After a few days we attended the Open House, to learn more about the school, his class, and any possible after school activities. Keegan has been assigned to Room 12, and he has a nicely structured day. Besides a strong emphasis on writing, reading and math, the kids also have “enrichment” classes. These classes include science, music, art, Mandarin Chines, Spanish, computers and of course P.E. We like the fact they usually split the kids in two groups for these enrichment classes, so only 12/15 kids participate in these activities at one time. The room is split in various areas, including a reading area, with Montessori learning tools. It also has a color chart, to track behavior…and this is definitely an area we are working on.

So far, we are pretty happy with the experience. Keegan is still adjusting. He is pretty much the only one that does not know how to write legibly, and this get him a little discouraged …but obviously not enough to get him to practice more. All our attempts have been futile. However, he is now starting to read on his own! Again, we have been trying for a very long time to practice with him, but in vain. He started practicing his letter sounds a little during summer school, but only now he actually began to read. Reading Italian is obviously a little easier for him, since it is pronounced exactly as it is written, but he is learning quickly to read in English too. Granted, we are still at the very basic level, but it is a big improvement in two weeks. And , once again, proof that he will not be coaxed by us into doing thing he does not want to do. I wish he wouls resist peer pressure the same way.

reading together

As for making friends, I think he is doing all right. He does not have a best friend yet, and already had small fights with another kid, but he seems to like his classmates. We met with his teacher and a few of the other parents at a pizza event, and all the kids seemed to get along well, and they all warmly greeted him when we arrived.

All these changes, though, have been taking a toll on all of us: with all the new rules, the increased work, the no-nap day and the new school, Keegan has been a little difficult to handle: meltdowns and tantrums are common, and not only from him, and he has been constantly challenging us and pushing us to the max. It has been a little stressful.

We all know it is just temporary, and that he will soon find his new groove…we just hope it will happen soon. On the fourth day of school, bright and early in the morning, we had another beautiful double rainbow, that we want to see as a sign of a great year ahead. And with this photo, I promise…no more rainbow pictures.

And if worse comes to worse, and he decides later that school is not for him… he will make a great field technician at dad’s work.

Finally, almost 2 years after he got his first bike, Keegan learned to use his bike without training wheels. Hurrah! You may remember that when we bought the bike, Christmas 2011, we originally decided to not mount the training wheels. We bought a gyrowheel, to help him learn instead.

The wheel, using its gyroscope, helps the bike to stay balanced on its own, teaching good habits. Wired magazine named it The Training Wheel of the Future. We were so full of hopes and dreams. In fact, one of the first things we did on January 1, 2012 was testing the new bike and new helmet. How naive! Of course we did not counted on Keegan’s strong will. He refused to even touch the bike for more than 6 months, no matter how much pleading we did. By early July, with his school’s Bike Parade quickly approaching, we caved in and installed traditional training wheels: Keegan 1, Parents 0. He still did not fall in love with the bike, but he used it a little more, especially when the neighborhood kids were out riding.

Finally, this year, we had to get rid of the training wheels: they were falling apart, and not even touching the grounds. Finally, very begrudgingly, and after much pleading (and threats too) we forced him to try out the bike with the special wheel. On August 26, we finally had the first successful attempt at riding alone. The initial, partial success slightly motivated him, and within two weeks, with much pleading, he started running around the neighborhood.

We slowly reduced the gyroscope wheel speed, to get him used to balancing himself. He became more and more confident, so much so he wanted to show off for people, usually girls. We graduated from the curb in front of our house, to the park to Mission Bay.

Finally, on September 7, we switched out wheels, and Keegan rode all by himself! He is so confident now that we went for a small bike-ride in the neighborhood. Obviously, he is still learning to balance, steer, not to lean, and even more importantly, not to get distracted while he rides, but it is a huge progress. Now he wants to learn skateboarding and scooters, but we will wait a little bit for that.

off into the sunset

So, I guess the advertisement is true: it takes about two weeks to learn to ride a bike with the Gyrowheel…too bad it took us 1.5 year to get to this point! Once again Keegan showed us that he will do things when is ready and willing, not when we tell him to. Montessori seems more and more the right choice for his learning style.