back to school

In the aftermath of last Sunday's Kennywood excursion, which resulted in a bedtime of about 11:30 PM, Monday was back-to-school for Dylan, Zachary and Lily.  Dylan and Zachary are both still in the middle school building, and Lily, the elementary.  However, our district regrouped the busing this year, to eliminate one run from the daily schedule, which messed with the family dynamics of the bus stop.

Last year, Dylan and Zachary were together at the middle school bus stop, and Lily was by herself at the elementary bus stop.  This year, sixth grade (the last year of middle school) was bumped to the earlier junior high/high school bus, and the remainder of middle school was combined with elementary.  The  result in our home:  Dylan goes to the bus stop by himself (at 6:40 AM) and Zachary gets to walk his little sister to the bus stop! (He's thrilled about that)

The middle school uses the same bell schedule, but sixth grade starts and finishes one period earlier than the rest of the school.  Dylan says he likes the early schedule... "sixth grade rules the school, because we get there before everyone else.  The school is quieter and more relaxing with just sixth grade there."  He also likes getting home earlier than everyone else.

After a week, all three are pretty excited about school.  Lily thinks she is going to like first grade.  It's a lot about friends for her, and she was happy to see that she was in class with some of her friends from Kindergarten, and she got the teacher she wanted...  Mr. N. is one of the few male elementary teachers in our system. 

Zachary is excited to reach his recorder year.  Traditionally, fourth grade in our school system is the recorder year.  Every member of the class is presented with their own personal Yamaha recorder and the entire year's music curriculum is devoted to learning to play the instrument, culminating with a fourth grade concert for the middle school's Grandparent's Day the last week of school.  Is it just a coincidence that band starts in fifth grade and the fifth grade band teacher is also the fourth grade music teacher?  Ahhh, I think not!  Great way to pre-qualify the expectations of potential band members!

Dylan is in his last year of middle school, and he was moved up to Challenge Math, Reading, and Social Studies this year.  He should have probably been in challenge courses already, but they only test for promotion to challenge placement in third and fifth grades, and he missed the assessment in third, because we transitioned him from public charter homeschool to local public during the winter break of his third grade year.  He has friends that have been in the challenge courses since fourth grade, so  he is excited to be with them.  He'll be learning snare drum, bass drum, and tambourine in his second year of school band.