Luke the First Grader

Luke prepped for school by loading up his new lunch bag and a big backpack with books - mostly Jack's chapter books - and hauling them down to the family room.

A few days later he practiced packing a lunch.  He included: an entire box of microwave popcorn (not pictured), 5 packages of Ramen noodles, 2 not-yet-frozen Otter pops, a full bottle of water, a mango, and a banana.  His lunch-packing skills have improved.

After the third day of school the following conversation happened.
Me: Tell me about your teacher.
Luke: She's blonde. She has glasses. She always wears a dress. She nice.
Me: What makes her nice?
Luke: Her niceness.

His first assignment was to fill out this getting to know you page.  It was torture for both of us.  But he eventually finished it and I love this part... "My favorite thing about school is my friend Liam."

This is how Luke feels about homework in general.  After completing 4 weeks of school, I'd say the feeling is mutual.

Have I ever mentioned that Luke's imaginings can often be described as macabre?  He'll randomly theorize or tell a story about this or that injury or sickness or death (and members of the family do not have immunity).  He brought this paper home from school recently.  He was told to draw someone in disguise.  So he drew someone dressed up as a zombie, with a sword.

On a lighter note, he's also been learning about matter.  I'm pretty sure I was in at least middle school before I learned the word "molecule" so he's way ahead of 6-year-old me.

Cat's High School Soccer Career Begins

A few highlights of the season at the midpoint:

Cat started training with the high school soccer teams over the summer, with tryouts being held in July.

She didn't find out until shortly before the first game the second week of August that she'd be playing Varsity - the only freshman with a permanent Varsity spot.

She didn't start the first game.  But she scored more goals than anyone else.

By the fifth game, she had started a few games, and with 10 goals (5 in that game alone) she'd scored more than anyone else on the team.  And broken the school's freshman scoring record.  Her coach warned her that she now had "a target on her back."

By the seventh game, Cat was the highest scorer in the 3A league.  In the state.  She'd also had several assists, though I don't know exactly how many.

Cat is truly loving playing on this team.  She loves her school.  She loves her teammates.  And she really loves her coach.  She's tired every day after soccer and begrudges the toll the time commitment takes on her homework and piano practice, but even her complaining isn't really complaining.  She's eating it up.

Cat's school is a charter school but their opponents are determined by the sizes of the schools, not whether they are charter schools or not.  Most of the teams Cat plays against are from traditional schools, but they're also pretty spread out.  Almost all of the schools are over an hour away, with one or two being more than two hours away.  This means leaving school early, spending lots of time on the bus, and trying to get homework done when she can.  It helps that she has a teammate in her math class!

The team has lost a few games but overall has a winning record.  They'll have more home games in the second half of the season so that will probably work in their favor.  It'll be fun to see how far they go!

I love that Cat is continuing to enjoy playing so much after the emotional decision to quit her club team.  Soccer really is her thing.

Starting School

The kids went back to school last month!

Cat was excited for school to start this year.  Who isn't excited to finally be a high schooler?  She's attending the same school she's attended since 7th grade but now there are some major differences: a new, much more sophisticated looking uniform, harder classes (honors biology and precalculus!), Winterim after Christmas break, playing on the high school soccer team, attending seminary, and being allowed to leave campus during lunch.

Photographic evidence to the contrary, Jack was not particularly excited about starting school.  He was glad he'd get to see his good friend again and that he'd be in 6th grade, the oldest grade in elementary school, but that was about it.  Thank goodness he likes his teacher and he'll continue to be pulled out for a special math class with the same teacher who taught him math last year.

Eliza was pretty bummed that only one of her 3rd grade friends would be in her 4th grade class but I was pretty sure she'd make new friends and still be able to see last year's friends during one of the 3 recesses the kids have during the day.  Eliza really likes her teacher, but she left the second week of school to go have a baby.  Can you believe that?  Life with a long-term substitute is going pretty well though and it will only be a couple more months before Mrs. O is back.  Eliza is also still upset with me for making her to go to this school when she misses her friends and the more laid back atmosphere and less rigorous curriculum of the school she attended for K-2nd.  I hope she'll come around some time this year.

Luke wasn't particularly excited about going back to school but he wasn't upset about it either.  He's done great transitioning to full-day school as a 1st grader this year.  He loves his teacher and he has a good friend in his class, but... he does NOT like homework.  Which could make this a very long year.

All smiles after the first day:

Then we jumped right in with our routine and drove straight to piano lessons.

Cat, on the other hand, was not happy.  She wasn't expecting to have homework in almost every single class, plus lots of big books to carry home along with her soccer gear on the first day of.

Welcome to high school, kid.

It's kind of heavy and really big." - Luke

She found solace in her favorite place: the freezer.

And then got mad that everyone else wanted ice cream too.

"Quit eating my ice cream!" - Cat

Having all the kids in school all day has allowed me more time to volunteer at the elementary school.  I've committed to help with math in Eliza's class and to help the librarian each week.  I'm also the room mom for Eliza's class and I'll probably help with Luke's class soon too.  I volunteered for lunch/recess duty during the third week of school, which was a good opportunity to see the kids - mine and the others - at their most relaxed.  It was fun to see kids who knew me from helping with PE last year and to greet the kids' friends and to even see some other parent volunteers I'm familiar with.

I took a minute to snap a picture of each kid with his/her current best friend.  Eliza, who had been really upset that she only had one friend in her 4th grade class who was carrying over from her 3rd grade class, was surrounded by girls she was NOT in class with last year and wanted them all to be in the picture.  (And the blue/green pattern was not planned, believe it or not.)

(I wanted to have a pic of Cat to include as well so she took this one with her
best-good friend right after soccer practice.)

When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way...

At the end of the school year we found out that Eliza was invited to join Jets, one of the competitive teams at her gym.  She was THRILLED about it.  They began training twice (totaling 2.5 hours) each week at the beginning of the summer and Eliza has loved it.  She's having lots of fun and she's making good friends.  She really likes the coaches and feels like they do a better job of teaching and pushing her than her former coaches.  She appreciates that she's being challenged, but at her own pace (she's ahead of some of the other girls on bars so she gets to work on more difficult skills when they're working on bars, but she's not as good on the beam). 

Here are a few skills Eliza has learned since starting Jets in June:
jump to high bar (using the high bar!)
kip (bar)
two consecutive back hip circles (bar)
almost independent on back handspring (floor)
twist dismount (beam)
front handspring over the table (vault)

Eliza's favorite event is bars, though sometimes her hands pay the price (and along with them, piano practice, haha).