Picnic Helps Ease 1st-Day School Jitters

One 4-year-old girl laughed and blew bubbles while her new friend popped them.

A boy quietly colored himself and the sidewalk with lime green chalk.

Another boy wet his pants and cried.

During the pre-preschool picnic at Quimby Park on Tuesday morning, veteran teacher Cheri Mahlknecht watched the range of emotions--from cheerfulness to shyness to fear--that children commonly experience when they first begin school.

“It’s an emotional time,” said Mahlknecht as she welcomed and hugged about 30 boys and girls who will start preschool today in her morning and afternoon classes at Hart Street School, a year-round elementary in Canoga Park. “Usually, the first day is an absolute scene of children crying.”

For the past five years, Mahlknecht has hosted picnics to ease preschoolers’ fears about the first day of school and give them a chance to meet her and their classmates. Parents are invited because they volunteer in the classroom and also suffer from separation anxiety, she said.

To get everyone’s mind off the first day, Mahlknecht provided apple-shaped name tags, bubbles, sidewalk chalk, graham crackers, bananas and a parachute that children and parents spun and bounced a ball off. She also snapped family photos with each student to hang in the classroom.

“Magical things happen [at the picnic] to help relieve tensions,” said Mahlknecht, whose Disney “Goofy” shirt was a hit with many of the kids.

The picnic cheered up Francisco Hernandez, 4, who ran in circles around the park with his new friends. “I like school,” the beaming boy said in Spanish. “I want to be a helper in the classroom.”

At first, 4-year-old Joaquin Mota could only cling to his mother’s leg and cry.

“You’re the kind of guy who needs to be here,” Mahlknecht said, kneeling on the grass, wiping away some of Joaquin’s tears and talking with him about the Pokeman characters on his T-shirt.

Although Joaquin cried most of the morning, his mother, Maria Luisa, said she believed the picnic would make it easier for her son on the first day.

At the very least, she said, it made her feel better.

“My heart hurts,” she said in Spanish. “He’s really attached to me. It’s sad to let him go.”