Anyone remember first day of school?

Yes! I hated the first day of school. I was 4 years old and lived in England. The school I was to go to had a huge brick wall around it so you couldn’t see any of the kids playing at recess and I didn’t like this but my mom still dropped me off.

I stayed all day and had a hot lunch with a cold bottle of milk along with rice or tapioca pudding. It was actually good. While there I learned a lot of words and remembered them.
The word LOOK has two eyes 👀 in the middle.

Then we moved to Canada 🇨🇦 and I had to wait to go to Kinder-garden and I hated it. It was only for half a day where I learned to finger paint and have naps on the floor with all kinds of other kids. I hated it and rebelled and haven’t stopped rebelling since 😏
 

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I can remember my first day of kindergarten, coming to school with a cool pencil box that the teacher promptly put on a shelf where it remained unused, thereafter to be taken home and left there. What struck me as most unusual was the nap thing where we were expected to lie down on small rugs brought from home. I sure wasn't tired or sleepy! I later decided nap time was to give the teacher a break from us...
 
I didn't like school; I was a nervous wreck and would throw up every single day prior to going to school. I was terrified. I remember walking with my two older sisters and throwing up on our way to the school. :sick:🤮 It was a short walk. I finally stopped this habit and started to enjoy school and did my best to make good grades.

I also walked home to eat lunch.
 

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Fyrefox said:
I can remember my first day of kindergarten, coming to school with a cool pencil box that the teacher promptly put on a shelf where it remained unused, thereafter to be taken home and left there. What struck me as most unusual was the nap thing where we were expected to lie down on small rugs brought from home. I sure wasn't tired or sleepy! I later decided nap time was to give the teacher a break from us...
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Oh I remember nap time too- there were little cots and also mats.
Afternoon milk for kids who brought in an extra dime.

It wasn't the first day, but also "Show and Tell."
And it seemed to be my parents' first experience of when a teacher said kids need to bring in something they must bring it the next day- I had to get a little smock for art.

In grades K-2 we ate lunch in the classroom, and the restroom was also in the classroom.
 
Grapevine
Even small children have their grapevine.
Within the first week, we first graders heard the macabe stories of the 3rd grade
teacher Miss Mockingmill, the terror of the elementary school.
Her reputation was well deserved.
She would swing her 18 inch ruler like Leatherface swung his chainsaw.
 
I started Kindergarten at 5 years old....I had to wait till it was in September....They put my cousin in a different room....We both cried our
eyes out....They wouldn't let us be together....My Mom also tried to get us both together....They did it by your first name....
Anyway....We went to that school till ninth grade, then went to High School for 3 years and graduated....
I never had any trouble in school....I just wanted to graduate to get a job and then marry my husband....(I met him in High School)
 
peppermint said:
I started Kindergarten at 5 years old....I had to wait till it was in September....They put my cousin in a different room....We both cried our
eyes out....They wouldn't let us be together....My Mom also tried to get us both together....They did it by your first name....
Anyway....We went to that school till ninth grade, then went to High School for 3 years and graduated....
I never had any trouble in school....I just wanted to graduate to get a job and then marry my husband....(I met him in High School)
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I went through the same thing in Grade school and even high School. I had a cousin Joan and in each school we were never in the same class room. I always wished we could have been together.
 
peppermint said:
I started Kindergarten at 5 years old....I had to wait till it was in September....They put my cousin in a different room....We both cried our
eyes out....They wouldn't let us be together....
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Hopefully your school didn't have the policy mine had- routinely holding kids back a grade if they were deemed 'socially immature.' How 'mature' do they think Kindergartners needed to be, anyway?!? :cautious:

One classmate had an older brother in a higher grade. Whenever he saw his brother in the hallway, he'd start crying 'Bobby, Bobby! I want to go with Bobby!' and for that, they made him spend an extra year in Kindergarten! :mad:
 
Like it was yesterday. I started at a school that was a 300 ft walk from my house. All the neighborhood moms showed up with their kids on tow. Most of the kids were screaming their heads off and clinging to their parent. I even remember thinking what a bunch of wusses they were. One just wouldn't stop and he was a BOY! After a while the teacher had to call his mom to come and get him. He did eventually straighten out. This is a pic of the building that was used for the school. No longer a school, but since I don't live in that neighborhood anymore, I'm not sure what it's used for now. Also my pic my mom took that day long ago in front of the school.

school 4.jpg

starting school.jpg
 
I will never forget my first day of school. I was so shy that when we were sitting around our teacher in a circle on the floor while she was telling a story, I had to go to the bathroom. I was so afraid to raise my hand to ask to go, that I peed right there. Everybody jumped up! In fact, my boyfriend now, Sonny, was one of those children! He remembered it happening but did not remember it was me.

One boy who lived near my grandmother's house, kept biting my arms at nap time. I did not tell anyone. I would pretend I was asleep because the teacher had a girl and a boy rag doll. The first girl to go to sleep at nap time, the teacher would put the doll next to you for your nap. I was almost always the first one to go to sleep. This boy though, would always be near me for nap time and then he'd bite my arm. Hard, I'd see his teeth marks. Well, one day when the bus came..........I refused to get on. My mother took me to the school after I told her what was happening. His mother was called and when he was questioned he said he did it because he liked me. Now he is my friend on FB and he told me that for his whole life his family kidded him about that!
 
Camper6 said:
Wow! That was a real long time ago but I can remember it like it was yesterday.

I was terrified. I remember the blackboard and a sort of curtain scroll that pulled down and I'm sure it was the vowels displayed. Anyway it was all greek to me. We didn't have kindergarten. We started in grade one and it was a full day except we were allowed a 15 minute break called recess in the morning and afternoon. We were also allowed an hour and a half to go home for lunch. I didn't want to go back. And our teachers were nuns which to me were strange.

But the most strange remembrance and it was the smell of the classroom. There used to be a kind of clay stuff that you could mold into shape. Like playdough. It was called plasticene (sp). Even now if I can smell something like it my heart starts racing just like the smell in a dentist's office. It's funny about smells. It stays with you for life. You just don't forget a smell. It's indelibly inserted into your brain. My mother taught me how to identify the good mushrooms by the smell. I can still identify the good ones easily when picking wild mushrooms.

My panic disappeared when we started to learn how to read. I was really good at it. And they used to take me to the next grade to read to the class.

So share your experiences with me so that I don't think I was such a wimp.
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Now that you mention it, I remember that smell too! I forgot about that clay. Smells have been affected me my whole life and school was full of them. Like the mimeographed paper or the smell of the books. Back then though, I liked those strange smells.
 
debodun said:
Like it was yesterday. I started at a school that was a 300 ft walk from my house. All the neighborhood moms showed up with their kids on tow. Most of the kids were screaming their heads off and clinging to their parent. I even remember thinking what a bunch of wusses they were. One just wouldn't stop and he was a BOY! After a while the teacher had to call his mom to come and get him. He did eventually straighten out. This is a pic of the building that was used for the school. No longer a school, but since I don't live in that neighborhood anymore, I'm not sure what it's used for now. Also my pic my mom took that day long ago in front of the school.

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Nice straight legs. No rickets in that family.
I was so bowlegged they could pass a beer barrel through them without touching.
 
Being a 1st Grade Teacher most of my career I have had many of these first day of school experiences in my day. I have had criers, screamers, and ones that just wouldn't speak at all. My own experience though from what I can recall, I was dropped off by my mom and from what I remember my Teacher Miss Adams took me to my cubby area and I put my lunch box in there and she took me to my desk. I remember just being shy and it was hard for me to fit in.
 
Lovely Rita said:
Being a 1st Grade Teacher most of my career I have had many of these first day of school experiences in my day. I have had criers, screamers, and ones that just wouldn't speak at all. My own experience though from what I can recall, I was dropped off by my mom and from what I remember my Teacher Miss Adams took me to my cubby area and I put my lunch box in there and she took me to my desk. I remember just being shy and it was hard for me to fit in.
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I think a lot of us were really shy and it took a long time to get over it.
 
I don't remember my first day. It was in the country in St. Clair, Michigan. A little 2 room school with kindergarten in one room and first grade in the other. At second grade we took a bus to a new East China, Michigan school that, at that time, sat out alone in the country side.

Now, my son's first day went very well. I took him to school for a half day session, went home, and worried about how much he would miss me. I went to pick him up and when the bell rang he walked out holding hands with a little girl. He didn't miss me at all.
 
I sure do remember the first day of kindergarten.

I even remember the teachers name. Mrs. Keeler said "Now don't be a crybaby, look at Susan Reardon, she's not crying". Susan and I were classmates until we graduated from high school at the same school....she was a witchy little snit then and she still is now.
 

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