Dot’s First Day

Dot stood at the bus stop nervously. Her mom stood behind her, as excited as Dot was nervous. With a camera around her neck, her mom was ready to take lots of pictures of Dot leaving for her first day of school.

Dot was the first one of her brothers and sisters to go to school. She was five. While she was starting kindergarten, the twins would still be in daycare and her baby brother would be home with their mom. It made Dot wish she had a twin sister to go with her!

As the bus pulled up, her mom started taking pictures. Dot sighed and hugged her mom quickly, then walked up to the stopped bus. The doors hinged open with an ominous creak, but the bus driver inside smiled at her.

“Is this your first day?” he asked nicely.

“Yes, sir,” Dot said as she struggled to get up the big bus steps.

The bus driver reached down and gave her a hand up. Outside, her mom started to cry.

“Oh, Dot,” she said, “this is so exciting! I can’t wait for you to tell me all about your first day when you get home!”

The bus driver pulled a big lever, and the doors pulled shut, separating Dot from her mom. Suddenly Dot wanted to cry. This was hard! But then the bus driver handed her a big orange sucker.

“Be careful eating it, and please throw away your trash. But I am glad you are going to be on my bus, Dot. You will have a great first day.”

Dot walked a little ways down the aisle and found an empty seat. All around her were other kids. Some were small and nervous like her, and others were tall- almost as big as her mom!

At the next stop, another kindergarten student got on- a boy with short hair and a blue backpack. He looked a little lost, but he stopped in the aisle by Dot.

“Can I sit here?” he asked. Dot nodded.

“Are you excited to start school?” he asked.

“Not really,” Dot admitted. “I’m very nervous!”

“Don’t be!” the boy said, smiling. He seemed more confident himself now he was helping someone else. “Our Teacher, Ms. Smith, is very nice. And she has lots of fun games for us to play. Plus we get to learn to read, and have recess, and meet lots of new friends–” he was so excited he could hardly keep up with what he was saying.

“My brother told me all about it,” the boy added. “By the way, I’m Ben.”

When they got to the school, Ben walked with Dot all the way to their classroom. He helped her hang up her backpack on her peg, and showed her all of the fun games that were in the classroom. With a friend like Ben, maybe school wasn’t so scary after all.

Then the teacher came in. She smiled at all of the students, and asked them to sit on the carpet by a big rocking chair. Later they would play the games and go outside, but not right now. First, they were going to start out with a story. Dot loved story time! No, kindergarten wouldn’t be bad at all.