Sunday, January 19, 2014

Week one of 2014 - Kindergarten

Thinking back about Kindergarten!   Wow, a time of such wonder and innocence!  Hard to believe that I was a short 6 years into my life! 

  I was so happy to be able to go to school like my BIG sisters!  I thought I was finally all grown up! In 1960, I had missed a cut off date for starting school by several months. You needed to turn 5 years old before June 1, in order to be eligible for school in September. With my birthday in August,  I missed the deadline!  I was so disappointed. So I started Kindergarten in September of 1961, when I was six years old. My school was in the small rural farm town of Romeo, Michigan. We lived in a 20 house neighborhood on the corner of Mound Road and 29 Mile Road. Our address was Romeo Michigan but we were quite a ways from town so that meant a fairly long school bus ride to and from school each day. I don't remember how long a ride it was exactly but for 6 year old it seemed like forever. On more that one occasion, I fell asleep on my ride home. I always sat in the seat right behind the bus driver. At first it was rather scarey getting on that big bus and finding your seat. I was so small that I could not see over the seats to even see if anyone else was on the bus. I crawled on the bus and into the first seat that I came to behind the bus driver. I sat in the same seat every day that year!


For my birthday, my Grandpa Anderson always gave me a new dress for school. My favorite of these dresses was the one I got for Kindergarten! I am wearing it in the picture. He had told me that is was for my first day of school so I saved it until then. It was actually a gray flannel jumper with a white blouse. The blouse, as you can see, had small red hearts on the collar. The jumper had hearts at the waist line. It was my favorite dress as a little girl! I wish I still had it!  When I opened my birthday present that year, laying on top of the dress, was this cute little red plastic horse pin! I fell instantly in love with it. I wore it to school every day that year. I put it on and took it off each day. Before the end of the year, I had pinned it on so many times that I broke the pin. I was devastated!


My memories of school are vague. I remember playing duck duck goose. I also remember sitting in a circle at story time and listening to the teacher as she read us a story. I remember how hard it was to sit still and listen. I always wanted to go play with the building blocks or the pretend kitchen. I do remember painting with finger paints on paper. I thought it was so much fun. We would cover our clothes with old shirts.

1 comment:

  1. Such great memories...I had forgotten about the new "school dress" each year. It would be fun to have one yet! AND we wore only dresses and skirts...and pants underneath in the dead of winter....IF mom could get us to. I know I hated snowpants even if it meant blue legs. Oh my, have things changed! It sure is interesting to see what you can remember. Great job!

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