First day of kindergarten

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Me too, I just felt completely frozen and shy. It did not help that I got lost after I got off the bus and went to third grade! They were supposed to collect all the kindergarten kids with the special flintstones tags -- I don't know how the heck they missed mine, but they did, so I finally just walked myself along some hall and ended up in a third grade class. Since I could read and write already, I kept up with things until the teacher figured out where I actually belonged. That was a big joke to everyone, that I could end up in third grade and no one noticed I was missing from kindergarten. I think I been missing since then too, really, in some ways, just not present. But after that, I -- true to form-- did not get along with other kids. I would try to talk to them, but I have no idea, it must be my self-presentation, but they just did not want me around, no one even wanted to nap near me. To this day I think I must scare people, I'm not even totally ugly, if I do the old hair and makeup routine, but I think something about me drives people away, and that first became apparent in kindergarten. I just could not find a place to fit in, and I even remember telling myself, I have to think of something to talk about! I can't believe it was so important to me at that young age, but it was and I still haven't found something to talk about.

What I do know is that my mom couldn't keep me long at nursery school because I constantly acted up and at that time I did have sensory issues. I cried all day but in kindergarten surprisingly I was okay. I don't have any negative distant memories about kindergarten.. in fact only positive ones. But.. the teacher was extremely caring and she must have told the kids that I was extremely shy and fearful and the kids treated me like gold. I guess I was just lucky... the teacher was the one that told my mom that she had to put me into special ed instead of grade 1 because my speech at that time was WAY behind. She was sure I had some significant learning disabilities. In the first year of special ed, my speech flooded in and I was slowly integrated into grade 2 and by grade 3 I was in a fully mainstream class and did surprisingly okay but had a lot of extra help. I ran into real trouble from grades 7 to 9, of course being the new kid made things even worse. I doubt I would have ran into those issues as badly if I had stayed in the same school and my mom is kicking herself to this day. Can't change the past but I can certainly make sure that if my kids are happy at school, I am not moving anywhere and therefore they will stay in the same school and grow up with the same kids.

I can't remember.

I remember events from preschool, but nothing chronologically. The teacher thought I was a jerk, and she was probably right (I'd interact with others by smashing stuff they made when it was play time. It was all "Hulk Smash!", really). I rarely paid her any specific attention too, but I'd comply with basic commands [as I was paying attention to everything].

My parents didn't send me to kindergarten, since it wasn't mandatory where I was living and my parents didn't want to spend the money since the only kindergartens available were private kindergartens.

I went straight into 1st grade but manged to do well academically. It was the first time in my life I'd ever been around other kids other than older siblings, so it was a bit of a shock. I didn't like going there at first, but I adjusted.

I was upset most of the time because my teacher yelled at us a lot and that really upset me. But most of the crying and meltdowns I had during preschool.

I went to a Head Start preschool program so the school expirence was not totaly alien to me.
I was in Kindergarten twice as a kid. My first experience wasn't that great. My parents had heard that the teachers at a nearby out of distinct school were really patient and such so they sent me there instead of the actual district school. I wanted to bring my special stuffed animal but my mother would not let me fearing I might loose it. I had severe separation anxiety at that age. The kids were mean and rude. I was always getting in trouble for things I could not control. I had a compulsion at that time that a picture of a giraffe always had to be with a picture of a zebra and vice versa. We had to do a worksheet which consisted of various groups of animals and write down how many animals there were. I about panicked when I saw a group of three giraffes and no zebra. Rather than have a meltdown I improvised. I took an orange crayon and drew a zebra myself. A girl sitting next to me saw this and called out, "Teacher! Jesse's coloring on her paper!" The teacher strutted over to my desk with a red pen in hand and marked a big "X" on my zebra. Tears came to my eyes. I regret not drawing another one just to screw with her and see how long she would X them out or not having a HUGE meltdown or tantrum. I stalked down the tattletale at recess and pounced on her. I got caught but kept attacking her until they made me stay inside. I sat down on this chair thing and tattled on my by saying "Teacher! Jesse's sitting on the furniture!" Aren't people supposed to sit on furniture? I never figured that one out even eleven years later. For art we were supposed to draw shapes as a strange new teacher told us what to draw. I grew bored because I already knew my shapes and colors so I turned my drawings into a person by adding some curly hair. The teacher sees this and screams, “Hey I didn’t tell you to do that!” I continue to draw anyway to everyone’s amazement. For computers we had to walk to another room by going outside. I could shout and such when outside but the teacher would say, “We are inside. You need to you your side voice, Jesse.” We were NOT inside. We were outside. I also so hyper that I put the Tasmanian Devil to shame. I could not sit still for a second. I couldn’t write my name yet. I had my own special way to do so. A J and then scribbling. This was MY way of writing my name. On the last day I was ever at that school we were supposed to write our names to put inside of a cardboard school bus. Whenever I finished my “name” I would beam and show it to the teacher. She would throw it in the trash and hand me another piece of paper over and over again. My hand was starting to hurt and tears were coming to my eyes. My mother soon came to pick me up. I ran away and the teacher grabbed me saying I needed to finish. I kicked her and ran to my mom and jumped into her arms. I told her what was going on and my mom saw red. She told me to wait in the hall and went in and verbally abused the teacher. I never went back so I think I was only there a week. I was suspend of having ADHD so she decided to have me tested for it and once I was diagnosed and on Ritalin I was sent the next year at the district school with a good teacher. She had a brother had autism too.

Last edited by PunkyKat on 29 Aug 2008, 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

All my memories of school prior to first grade have this feeling of, "Why am I here? Who are these people and why won't they leave me alone?"

My first week of kindergarten, though, I think was some relief - I was transferred out of the pre-school class into the kindergarten class halfway through the school year on the school's orders (this was because, as I found out years later, the school was actually more or less a private special ed program, and I was one of the few who didn't have severe problems in the ways others there did), and thankfully that meant leaving behind most of the bullies who used to call me names. The lead bully was in the kindergarten class, but since the kindergarten teacher ran her class with an iron fist, I don't remember being bothered by her as much after the move.

Still, mostly my memories from that school were of confusion, fear and frustration.

I can't begin to remember

I was essentially unmanageable when I went to an actual kindergarten, at the Pendleton Steet School, in Bangor, Maine. One of the last things that I did was set off the fire alarm in front of the classes' teacher ( Mrs. Adams) and the Principal of the school.

After that, and another incident where I walked the 2 miles from my house back to school in the rain and banged on the door of my classroom, interrupting the afternoon kindergarten class, my dad pulled me out, and put me in a hippie run free school in Orono, called the Scidicook School.

I was a LOT better off, because I got to persue more tangeable interests like John Coltrane, hand throwing pottery, Gibson Guitars, Ancient Egypt, and got to see a Laser in action and make a bacterial culture of my mouth at the University of Maine, which was directly across the river.

I have a few memories of Kindergarten....I remember we had a tent and I would hide in it. My Mother tells me that she had to drag me to school and pry me off of her. She was the same way and her parents used to argue about which one of them would have to take her. I hated school all the way through, I just wanted to stay home where it was safe. The only time I enjoyed school was when I went to community college when I was in my late 20s and early 30s.

For some reason I did good the first couple of days. Probably because everyone was telling me how fun it would be and my sister was a year older than me and I wanted to get on the bus like she did. Well, after that, I was unbearable. I decided I didn't like it, was scared of all the work and what was expected of me and just in general would cry and try to get out of it every single day. This persisted for a while but not sure I remember how long. But I think it was several weeks. I remember the teacher saying something because I was crying and she got sick of me and said "you've been doing this for xxx weeks now" I guess I did eventually accept the fact that I had no choice but to go but it was not a good experience for me.

I remember a specific incident on my first day at kindergarten:

Before my mother dropped me off, she told me not to take my coat off. She meant during recess, but I thought she meant don't take it off at all. So when the teacher asked us to put our coats in the coat closet, I adamantly refused. I forgot what happened after that.

I think I actually enjoyed kindergarten. I don't remember the specific first day...but I really liked my school..and I liked my teacher...and I had a friend who was a boy named Jerry...I recall that I only got along with Jerry and one other boy who was black and also hung around Jerry. we were often in time out together. I remember feeling lost when Jerry was absent from school for long periods of time. i recall the other girls as sorta being sorta inaccessable.
I was very bad at following directions, and the teacher seemed either annoyed or worried or something when I would accidentally do the same assigment multiple times.....And I was always wetting myself and forgetting to eat so that my blood sugar would drop and i would feel very weak. My teacher would send me to the cafeteria to get a cookie. I remember that I was always being sent out of class for diferent things, and it was all mysterious in this big old school with a basement...I was repeatedly sent in for hearing tests, and I don't know how normal that was. I was also sent out of the class for these other tests that only a few of the kids had to take...and we were observed by a panel of grownups.
I recall really wanting to play with the puppet theatre, but not being able to because I was always in time out.

My school experience rapidly deteriorated after kindergarten.

I went to Head Start programs and daycares before Kindergarten, so it wasn't terribly special. I remember my family making a big deal out of it, but once I got there I didn't understand why, since it was basically the same thing I'd already been doing for my entire life up to that point, just with different people and with different scenery. I was a little disoriented at first, but once I realized that it was the same I settled down and did the same daydreaming introspection I had always been so good at.

I don't remember much of preschool, but I do remember crying on the first day. I stopped crying shortly after arriving, and didn't have any problems after that.

I didn't go to kindergarten but I can remember looking forward to first grade. It was a major shock when I found that I already knew just about everything academic and nothing at all about how to deal with other kids. NT kids are nasty little beasts. I'm not the sort to have a public meltdown but I withdrew a lot. I've bitten my nails since I had teeth, but for some reason I started plucking out all my eyelashes.