Big Yellow School Bus

School begins late in these parts, so I still feel justified in posting these first-day-of-school pictures.

It’s been a tough transition for everyone — with the jog between our old school district and our new one, the kids had a 15 week summer break.  By the last week, I contracted a head cold brought on, I feel certain, by sheer exhaustion.

Everyone was excited when school began.  The kids were bursting with so much nervous energy that I told them to run laps around our cul-de-sac while waiting for the bus to arrive.

And can I say how jazzed everyone is by the school bus?  Ho boy, this is riding in style.

It’s hard to send little Wimmy off for full-day kindergarten; I miss our one-on-one time in the afternoons.  The transition was a little difficult for him.  For those first few days, he would jump off the bus happy about school, but then begin yelling at me over some random trivial thing (like the color of his water bottle).  He even tearfully told me that kindergarten was “too boring” and he wanted to stay home with me all day.  But I also know that if he was going to half-day school (only 2 hours long, blah) he’d be complaining about being bored at home and missing his siblings, so . . . meh.  These days, he loves school with the same sunny enthusiasm that he loves everything.

Eleanor’s 2nd grade teacher is a dude this year, which is interesting.  She’s happy to be back to doing her favorite subject (math) and very happy to be getting back to her favorite extracurricular activity, creative dance.  (I LOVE the dance school we found for her — small classes, talented kids, and a third of the class is male!).

Meanwhile, Jeffrey is in an oversized 4th grade class this year, but his teacher seems good so far.  And the school psychologist is amazing!  I’ve already had 2 face-to-face meetings with her, and his IEP is rolling forward at lightning speed.  Such a big change from the schools in Salt Lake  . . .

The demographics of our new school are very different from our old one.  There’s a lot more diversity — kids from 37 countries go to this school.  It’s a nice change, but there isn’t as much parent involvement.  I’d say less than half of the families from this school showed up for Curriculum Night.  I wonder if that’s because of cultural/language barriers (parents not being aware of what’s expected) or an inability to attend because of work schedules and transportation issues?  We’ll see how things go from here . . .