A new school year

Summer ended and the kids went back to school. This was the first year I was unable to hand deliver both kids to their schools on the first day. Sam and Nathanael have never attended the same school at the same time, but this year was the first time their schools start and end at the same time. Dad took Sam for his first day of his second year at his school, and I took Nathanael to his very first day of public school. I got the usual first day of school pictures on my camera, but am devastated that I inadvertently lost the picture of Nathanael with his teacher (and who knows how many other priceless photos) when I accidentally erased my phone a couple months later. It was such a good picture too.

Sam received a post card from his new 4th grade teacher a week or so before school started. It was from the one teacher he DID NOT want to have. He said she was the mean one. Great. As it turned out, it didn't really matter because, in fact, they rotate through all three of the teachers each day for the different subjects. The post card teacher is his homeroom teacher. She also teaches reading. Another teacher does science and social studies. And the third teacher teaches math and spelling. Because there are only 3 gifted classes per grade, several of Sam's friends from last year are in his class this year. It's going to be another year of loads of ridiculous projects for me to complete at the last minute, but Sam has really impressed us so far with how much responsibility he has taken on.

Nathanael was excited to have our neighbor for his first grade teacher. Sam had her for first grade, too, but Nathanael wanted her because he is great buddies with her grandson who visits quite often. Having a familiar teacher was helpful for his transition to a new school. Surprisingly, Nathanael has quite a bit of anxiety about school. For the first few weeks, he would cry every morning and he set a rule that if we came to the school during the day (for lunch or to volunteer), we had to get him an early dismissal. He set this rule after we came to have lunch with him on the second week of school and he had a meltdown when we left. He was struggling so much that we sent him to school with a wallet-sized family photo which he taped to the top of his desk to look at when he was sad. After a short time he didn't need the picture any more. He still holds firmly to his early dismissal rule, but he has adjusted to being at school and has lots of great buddies!