Advice to Culminating Primary Children (from First Year Elementary Children)

If you have a child in the Children's House who will be moving up to Lower Elementary soon (or even next school year), he or she will begin visiting the Lower Elementary classrooms within the next few months. Rest assured; each child will be met with enthusiasm, kindness, and lots of excitement from his or her soon-to-be peers!  Read the sweet, funny tidbits of advice and encouragement from the First Year Lower Elementary children to the Primary Culminating Year children below, and be sure to share them with your culminating year children!Anna Rose (photo above): "I want to tell them that it will be really fun. You get to do lots of new works, like math, and checkerboard, and other things that are fun. At recess, you get to play made up games. We make a couple of teepees, we play hide and go seek, we play tag... I want to say that Elementary is really fun, that they will have new classmates, and they are nice. They're going to have lots and lots of fun!"Allison: "We have a lot of fun works, and a lot of crafts to do during read-aloud. We get to play in this big wide open space. We can even go in the woods. [Culminating Primary children] should be excited... because we have a hamster with nine babies!"Ollie: "What I like about Elementary is that you get to do work with the teachers. It's fun to do new works, and the good thing about that is that if you practice more work, you get more works and more works! What's great about recess is that you can go lots of places; but there are boundaries. You cannot go past the gravel road, and you cannot go past the big bush, and you cannot go past the playground. There are a couple of jobs, like laundry, which is kind of hard, because you have to wash the laundry, dry the laundry, and fold the laundry, and that's a lot of stuff. And that's all I have to say."Henry: "You can do so many exciting things! You can do lessons like racks and tubes, or checkerboard, or practice your handwriting. You can have fun with your friends at lunch. This year we even did clay work! If you're in the Racks and Tubes classroom, you get to walk Kenner two times a day!!!"Emil: "The best thing is recess. You have the woods and you can build forts every day. It's better than the playground because you actually have sticks you can play with, and you won't get in trouble. You get to run around in a waaaaaay bigger space. Also, you can dig for treasure."Seamus: "Okay... there's a lot of people, and I don't know how many people, but I think it's 27 people. It's a lot of fun, but if the bell rings, it means we are talking too loud. At recess you get to build forts, and you can get sticks. When you build forts, you can be first in command, you can be tenth in command, you can be fourth in command... you can't run with sticks, you can't go past the orange dots, you can't go on the rocks... "Nathan: "I like doing challenging stuff in my class. I would tell them, don't be worried. It's a part of life."Luca: "It's fun to be in the Elementary because you get to make hot lunch. Everyone gets a turn to make a dish for everyone. You get to go to the grocery store with each other. You also do really fun work, like the tone bars, the bells, it's fun. There's reading work if you like reading; there's writing work if you like writing. You'll make really good friends."Maggie: "They will like to come see Chubby, our hamster. I like to play hamsters at recess with my friends, and I also love to play bank game and do some other stuff too. It's okay to be nervous, but Lower Elementary is really really nice and they're going to love it!"Liam: "I would like to tell them that they will have lots of fun in Lower Elementary, and hopefully get lots of friends. You will get to do a bunch of different lessons with Ms. Megan and enjoy spending time with your friends."Helena and Kalina: "I was nervous to come to Lower Elementary when I was in Primary. I would say, SHINE! You get to do lots of work, and an hour of recess. You can go into the woods, to the field, the pavilion. There's a lot of space for recess, but we do have boundaries. You can't have a best friend, but everybody is your friend, no matter what."Max: "They will get to read. I like to read and do writing, to do challenging work, and I like getting new lessons and practicing them. I like snack too. The Primary students will get to learn addition on paper, checkerboard, grammar box, tone bars... so many new things. I like making friends, that's all."Matthew: "I like racks and tubes. I play soccer during recess. You don't do that in Primary. And you get to play with sticks. It's fun."Well, there you have it! Thank you to those Lower Elementary students who were present and willing to participate in this project! We think your kind words of encouragement will set any nervous minds at ease, and we know there are many Primary children who will be thrilled to join you!