First Week of School

Samuel is in grade 1 (Lower Elementary, or Lower El, in Montessori parlance). He had a great first week despite being a bit nervous about the transition. From the imaginative "They don't let you pee or poo in Lower El", to the more realistic "They read really big books and I don't know how to read big books". So I asked "do you remember when you started Casa, did you know numbers", he responded "no", I followed-up "and now you do know your numbers, how did that happen?", he said "Mimi learned me". Such a moment of being little and big all at once.

He came home on day 2 super proud of the venus tracing he did, and took it and the Jupiter and Saturn ones out of his lunch bag as soon as he got in the car on Friday.

Matthew and Renee had good first week too. Renee took another girl to the "peace table" (where kids resolve conflicts, have quiet time) on the first day of school to explain to her why she was wrong. She had a huge breakdown at dinner, putting food onto the floor and spitting in the pitcher of water. After that though she seemed to have a great week.

Matthew had a good week. He misses a friend who moved to Israel but is having lots of fun with a little girl whose mom I've known for 25 years. The week before school, he and Renee went to the camp at the school and everyday he asked if it was Tuesday and was disappointed when we said no. We thoughts he was excited to go back to school. Finally Tuesday came. When I picked him up at school he was in a terrible mood. Turns out he had been looking forward to Tuesday because that was Tae Kwon Do day at school last year, not really related to school.

Now we just need to figure out how we get to school on time.
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