Top 10 Signs The School's Alright

I knew we picked the hippie right school for our son, but I didn't know how *right* it was until I watched the after-school circus class. In a timber-frame barn on hardwood floors girls and boys were strutting on tall stilts and spinning around on all sizes of unicycles. Balance boards and Diabolos were being played with in the sidelines. One polite boy asked me if I was using the unicycle that I was sitting near. "No, I wish," I thought to myself. My son waited patiently, hoping to get a chance at one of those one-wheel wonders. Eventually, a kindergarten buddy showed my boy how to get onto a unicycle, even helped lift him onto it. Any lingering doubts I had about our school choice dissolved upon watching this simple kindness.

My oldest child needs *a lot* to feel filled up at the end of the day — a lot of exercise, food, social interaction, and learning — a lot of just doing. He's a bit of a 110% kind of guy. After his first day of all-day kindergarten, he had a Tae Kwon Do lesson and a park date. When we got home he said, "It's sort of a do-nothing kind of day." He said this at 6pm, not realizing what time it was, or that his fun, active, and educational day had been *all* day. He kind of laughed at himself when I pointed out the irony.

All summer I had tried to find the right balance of physical, social, and down time for him without much success. More never seemed to work, and less *really* never worked. Apparently, spending six hours a day away from me was the magic answer. That, and, maybe the little guy just needed to join the circus!

Here are some other reasons that this school's alright (for him/us):

10: You walk over a bridge to enter the multi-acre campus.
9: The parental dress code is appealing.
8: Not only is there a sailboat to play on, there's a pirate ship, too!
7: There's more than one structure that could be called a hobbit house.
6: You can call your teacher a clown, and he is.
5: The lunch shack cooks and serves vegetarian meals — with salad bar — that my kid loves.
4: My child now knows how to feed an Emu and an Alpaca.
3: I instinctively knew that I should preface a food gift (tomato chutney, naan, and Indian Coleslaw) to the kindergarten teacher with, "These were cooked in dishes that meat has been cooked in. I hope that's OK."
2: The unicycles!
1: While one mom I know went out of her way to *not* send her children to a school where kids are running around barefoot with green hair, I'm happy to say that we spend good money to do that very thing.

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P.S. I wanted to find more photos to link to, but I'm not finding the time. And, I still need to pick a name for the apron give-away. You have until tonight at midnight Pacific time to leave a comment and link. Thanks!!!!