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.