Helping in Leo's Kindergarten class

After dropping Serafina at school today, I headed over to Leo's classroom to help out. The teacher needs parent volunteers and I've been wanting to lend a hand, but I had to wait until Serafina was back in school.  I thought I'd just stay a couple of hours, but I stayed almost three and went straight from the kindergarten class to the preschool room to pick her up.

When I got there, the teacher put me to work assembling these monkeys.  The kids made all the pieces, but they needed to be stapled together.  Here are a few of them lined up.

Cute, huh?  The faces were all a bit different which gave them some personality.  Of course, it doesn't matter how adorable an art project is, once you've stapled your 28th monkey, you don't ever want to see one again.  

Except Leo's, of course. 

I was able to see Serafina during her recess while I was working in the classroom.

During my time helping, their third grade "book buddies" came in to meet them.  It was their first time pairing up and Leo was put with a boy he knows.  His buddy is Zach.  Zach's little sister is a kindergartener in the class next door and his mom was the preschool president last year and is a friend of mine.  They were happy to be together.

In case you're wondering what Leo is doing in this picture, he is pushing up his glasses with his whole hand on his face.

It was pretty overwhelming to be in the class with 30 little bodies.  I'm not sure how the teacher manages.  Leo has been complaining he's bored and I can see why he's saying that.  The class isn't particularly academically challenging.  The teacher focuses a lot on behavior and school rules and being good citizens.  Some of the activities seem a little young for him.  Of course, the little boy he's friends with is a "naughty" kid that had to sit away from the group during carpet time and was the only one to make his monkey with a sad face.  Luckily, Leo is really good at school, and he doesn't seem particularly influenced by this bad seed.
Anyway, I couldn't help but think wistfully about his year in private school and all the ways I liked it better, but I know I need to give the public school a fair shake and not make any judgements so early in the year or even based on a kindergarten year.  We are in a very high scoring, extremely desirable school.  I'll definitely be back to help regularly.  Leo liked having me there and I can tell the teacher needs it and appreciates it.