School officially began on Tuesday for my now public schoolers. I went to the meetings for the parent organizations at both the elementary and middle schools. I am very happy about the district that my kids are in. It so far is so much better than I remember school being for my mom when I and my siblings were in public school. I am especially happy about the middle school. The principle and dean both seem to be really in tuned to the needs of the students and have some philosophical stances that I like in regard to the necessity of elective type classes such as art, technology, band, choir, etc in contrast to many schools who are cutting them out in favor of extreme academic programs. The middle school also has a policy in which zeros (in other words undone work) is not tolerated, but rather a student will be put in a tutor situation after school until the work is done instead of just giving a bad grade & letting it go. Jamie said a policy like that would have made a huge difference for him. He had found that if he didn't do the work, and didn't really let his mom know how poorly he was doing in school, that no one would hold him responsible. He just slid by at barely passing. but if he had know he would have to do the work anyway - one way or another- he would have taken the time to actually do his homework. I am finding that my middle schooler has the same tendencies as his father - even when he was homeschooled. Or should I say especially? All the schools in this district have a superb system of communication with parents about homework and helping the students organize & keep track of their assignments and grades, for which I am also thankful.
The first week for the kids:
Nat - afternoon Kindergarten: "I had a good day! We played and had snacks." Nat is in kindy with one of his best friends. I thought at first that would be a good thing. Perhaps not, however. From the sound of it these boys were either talking too much or teasing each other a lot. I sent a note to Nat's teacher giving her a heads up about them. She said things went better when they were moved to different tables. LOL He loves school.
Johanna - 5th grade: Her first day was nervous a bit. She had a couple of embarrassing moments - one involving not knowing the Pledge of Allegiance (which I don't teach my kids & don't think they should be required to recite unless they want to) and the other involving a question she asked. She did already know one boy in her class because he lives across the street from one of her friends, and it took her only a couple of days to bring news of making several new friends. She is very nervous about math because the only math they've done was a sort of placement test for which she had to guess a lot of answers. I tried to reassure her that she would end up where she needed to be & that would be alright, since she can always get ahead if she really needs to.
Stephen - 7th grade: His first day was very stressful. He is not comfortable in new situations, especially when he doesn't know anyone else. This was a very new situation. We had to give him several pep-talks about who he is and what he doesn't need to expect of himself. He was really stressed by a huge fear of failure. He did seem to make a big impression on the girlies his first day at school - much to his chagrin! He had a similar experience in math as Johanna - but he said most of the class did extremely poorly on the test, so it wasn't a big deal in his mind.
One of the pep talks I gave the kids last week was how I learned from experience (I was "the new kid" 6 times growing up) the first person who makes friends with you is not always the best choice of friend. This piece of information proved true for Stephen. By default he had a certain boy in almost all of his classes & sat with him at lunch. By Friday, however, some other boys advised him that this kid was bad news & it would ruin his reputation to hang out with him. According to Stephen these were the "popular smart" boys who gave him this piece of advice & they invited him into their group. I am not saying that the "popular" kids are always the best choice, either, but Stephen & I were both glad about the way this all happened.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Of course, Jeshua (8yo) is still at home. We only did some reading (Bob Books) and math (Miquon) and I am reading aloud to him from Here Be Monsters!. I don't have the rest of my materials yet, and our schedule has been hectic so far because one of our car-pool deals won't be able to start until October, as it turns out. I was very happy to discover that Jeshua didn't have any problem jumping back in with math & reading where we left off earlier this summer. When I can I will be teaching him Chinese, (as per his request) and doing more in Explode the Code.
| 
