Sharing the low down on my 3 year old starting school for the first time and how the transition went.

Ezra is officially in school everyone!! We are on week 3 right now. Congrats to mommy and daddy who (kind of) have 3.5 hours a day of silence in the house. Brody is home, but as you guys know – there is a huge difference between a toddler and an infant. And 1 kid versus 2 for the most part. Especially when your son is a full on force like my man Ezzie.

Turns out many of you are also introducing your kids to school for the first time, so I am sharing a bit more about our experience, how we prepared and any other info I think you’d love.

Here’s the scoop on starting school:

  • Ezra started in a twos program. He turned 3 on January 26 so he missed the cut off. In NJ, you go to preschool based off when you start kindergarten so we put him in the twos program instead.
  • He is in a class with 10 other kids and he goes Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Usually it is Monday, Wednesday and Friday but I asked to do the other days because I figured we may go away for a weekend or something, etc. And luckily his school was very open minded to that.
  • Ez goes from 9am-12:30pm. So I basically blink an eye and he is home. They do give him his lunch (blog post on food ideas is coming!) and a snack there so when he comes home he usually takes a bath and a nap and has another snack because he is always hungry lol
  • We are sending Ezra to a local spot that we can walk to in 15 minutes or drive to in 5. Then he will likely send him to preschool there too and eventually he will head to the public schools here if we are still living in the area

How we prepared our 3 year old for school:

  • We talked about it a lot but not in an overwhelming way. We would bring up how he was starting school soon and how mommy’s and daddy’s don’t go to school. Granted he still cried but he did know that we weren’t going with him and he knew we’d pick him up
  • Ezra has had a nanny with him since he was 8 weeks. He is very much used to it not only being “mommy and daddy” all the time. But his nanny from Hoboken didn’t come with us here so he had a big transition between not having the same woman here daily to going to school. Thankfully he is open to having others around so he easily latched onto his teachers the first day. I am grateful he is easily able to cope with others even when Jord and I aren’t there.
  • We got him his own backpack and had him use it before school to get all excited. He would carry his toys in it (like on the airplane).
  • I asked Ez what he wanted to eat for his first day. What snacks and lunch he wanted so he was involved in the process. He obviously has requests so I let him pick anything that is “school approved”.
  • Ezra picked out his clothes with me. We laid everything out the night before and I had Ez there so he knew what we were preparing for. The next morning he even said “oh my school clothes” so he knew what was going on
  • Explained the run down on the potty situation. Ez is potty trained when it comes to peeing but no luck with poop. I tried to tell him he had to poop in a potty to go to school but no luck there. We sent him with pull ups and wipes.
  • Label everything! I am still doing this because I ordered some labels and I am waiting to get them. But we labeled things with tape and wrote in sharpie for somethings already
  • We made a sign to take a photo with the first day. Ez is not a huge fun of photos. It takes a lot of bribing in order to get a solid photo with him happy and smiling. So the night before we colored and made a sign together so he knew the next day he had to “say cheese for the picture”.

How it went:

  • Day one: Jord and I both went with him to drop him off. More so because we didn’t know what to expect and wanted to see what was going on. It was a really fast transition. The teacher basically comes out with the little thermometer thing and takes their temperature and takes your kid in. Not much time for goodbyes or a whole process. And we aren’t allowed in during covid. Ez cried a lot when I walked away but the teacher immediately brought him inside the school and he went right into the classroom. I heard he cried for about an hour but settled down. When I went to pick him up, he was really excited to see me and also was very happy. He didn’t tell me much about his day besides that he peed on his pants and he was really sorry he did. I felt so bad! The teacher didn’t know he pees standing up apparently so he was told to pee sitting down and he got confused.
  • Day two: Ez woke up and he seemed excited for school. I told him how I was going to drop him off and his dad would pick him up this time. He seemed okay and was talking about going and then as soon as I dropped him off he was hysterical. But again they took him in pretty quickly! HIs teacher said he settled down after about 15 minutes and he just needs his water bottle and all is good.
  • Day three: Pretty much the same as above. His teacher told us that the second he goes inside the classroom, he has his water and calms down immediately after. Still getting basically nothing from him when I ask about his day lol. Hoping he will tell him more since he is usually a chatterbox.
  • Day four: He seems to be in a good rhythm now. Besides the fact that he woke up screaming “no school today” at 5:50am, he walked right in and had a great time. He told me he did arts and crafts and had fun lol.
  • And now: Ez is in a great grove. He is always going to moan and groan a bit to do anything (just who he is!) but he is doing great at school and is in a routine. He also has started to make friends, he is super talkative in class his teacher says and he doesn’t scream and cry as badly as the first week.