Connor’s First Day of First Grade & Update

As many of you know, the days leading up to first grade had me quite stressed out. I was really worried we were going to have a repeat of last years first day of school.

Thankfully, things could not have been better! A few moms planned to meet in the morning to snap some photos  before sending the kids off. This was so helpful for Connor! He was excited to see his friends and I think he felt much more confident walking into school knowing his friends were by his side. (I didn’t force him to take a lot of photos before we left the house because I did not want to stress him out. We wanted to make it as normal of a day as we could. Kinda bummed to not have great quality photos but I think it helped him in the long run.)

It was strange to go the entire day without him. But just because he wasn’t physically with us, he was most definitely on our mind! I was counting down the hours and then minutes until it was finally time to pick him up! I was so happy to see him after such a long day! He said he had a great day and saw lots of friends from kindergarten.

It was a couple weeks before I feel like we have really settled into the routine of first grade. This is his first year of being at school for a full day so he’s pretty exhausted after pickup. We are working hard on balancing his therapy schedule and homework as well as time with friends. The first couple weeks he asked me each and every day if I could take him back to kindergarten. He tells me he misses his teachers (I do, too! It’s definitely a different vibe in first grade!) and wishes he could be back with them. But by the third week he stopped asking me that.

We had an appointment this morning with the ESS coordinator and Connor’s teacher to discuss his current IEP. The IEP goals get updated annually but apparently the IEP needs to be reevaluated every 3 years. We discussed Connor’s need for the IEP versus him just having a 504 Plan (504’s are more specifically for medical issues and don’t have written goals) and decided to have him reevaluated over the next couple weeks. We will meet again to determine what will be best for Connor. It sounds like he could very well exit out of the IEP, meaning he no longer qualifies as “developmentally delayed” and would just have the 504 Plan to continue with his classroom accommodations. I’ll keep you posted on whatever we decide is best for Connor.

Overall, it has been a very great start to the school year. Thank you to everyone for all of your prayers. We are so blessed with you all as our friends and family. We cannot thank you enough for constantly praying for us. We feel the prayers, for sure!

Just for fun- last year compared to this year!