A New School Year

The kids have been in school for a month now and it's been busy and different.

The big kids started school the day after we got back from Hawai'i.  It was a little rough, but we all survived the first week!

Elina is our official middle schooler in 6th grade.  

She has 6 different teachers and a locker.  She thinks the locker is the best thing ever.  During the first week of school, every day she would come home with ideas about how to make her locker more organized.  Ha!  She's definitely my child!

She likes most of her teachers, but she LOVES her Grammar teacher, Mr. S.  She thinks he's the funniest guy ever.  We had the privilege to meet all of Elina's teachers at her Curriculum Night, where we pretended to be Elina and walked through her whole schedule.  She was right--her Grammar teacher is by far the best teacher.  He has the passion that her 5th grade teacher has and he moves around in the classroom a lot...AND he loves to make up rhymes, as well as sing and dance for the class.  He says things like, "Nothin's got more glamour than grammar!"  He sings that while he does jazz hands!  He also says, "Are you dyin' to diagram?" and "Are you able to label?"  Who knew someone could be so passionate about grammar??

The homework level is about the same as 5th grade, so it's not too awful.  One thing I have to say is that Elina has gotten really good about doing her homework whenever she can and without our prodding.  This helps because some days she is really busy after school, and she always manages to find little pockets of time to work on homework.  She takes care of it all and I rarely check it.  She really is growing up.

Eli started 3rd grade and he got another teacher who is on the stricter side.  She's a knowledgeable teacher, but definitely not as sweet as you would think a 3rd grade teacher would be.  The assistant is also not as sweet, but Eli is still enjoying himself and learning a whole lot.  He has a lot of kids from his 2nd grade class (plus 2 of his closest friends), so that more than makes up for it.

Evie and Eulee started the week after the big kids.  Evie is in 1st grade and just loving it.  

The class is mostly made up of her kindergarten class, so she has fun.  I'm close friends with the 1st grade teachers and we all agree that Evie is the perfect combination of Elina and Eli.  She has Elina's diligence and work ethic, but she is also silly and slightly forgetful like Eli.  We've already gone on a field trip to the glass-bottom boats with the 1st grade class and she's also had her volcano presentation.  Ahhhh...good memories!

The biggest news is that Eulee started school!  Hard to believe that she is in Pre-K now.  

It's only 2 days a week, but it still changes the dynamics for me.  I actually have a little bit of time to myself to see friends all alone or to run errands solo.  Honestly, it makes me a little scared when I look ahead to next year when Eulee is in school full-time.  I'm used to talking to a little person all day long...now I'll be talking to myself??  Hmmmm.  But let's not fast-forward just yet.

Eulee is loving school.  On the first day, she didn't even say bye to me when she went into class.  That girl has been dying to go to school.  The teachers say she is so chatty with them, she loves to tell stories and she loves to give hugs.  Eulee is the complete opposite of Evie when she started Pre-K.  When Evie started, she didn't even make real eye contact or initiate conversation with the teachers until March of that school year!  Eulee has 2 best friends that she plays with...both are boys.  One (HK) is actually the younger brother of one of Evie's closest friends, CK.

Eulee also stays longer every Thursday.  She usually gets out at 12pm and Evie gets out at 2:15pm, so if I have her stay longer then I don't have to go back to the school twice.  It's nicer for me and Eulee really enjoys the after school program that she's in, KinderJam.  She gets to sing and dance...it's right up Eulee's alley!

We all started our first weeks of school with a huge back-to-school cookie.  My friend KL said I should start doing this and I'm glad I did.  The kids love biting into their own giant cookies!

School has been busy, but we are getting used to the routine.  We have lots of after-school activities on Mondays and Tuesdays, but the other days are pretty low-key.  I think this year I'm better at prepping things the night before and I'm cooking dinner during the daytime so that we don't have to get fast food all the time.  I use a lot of my time staring at schedules and writing down every detail of every day, but it really is the only way I can survive.  School is always a whirlwind of events, but it's totally crazy and fun...which also explains why I haven't posted in ages!!