Back to School!

Yesterday was the first (half) day of school. Ethan is now in middle school and his bus leaves at 7 a.m. so it was an early morning for us. Fortunately Ethan is a cheerful morning person. He was very excited about his new school, and his day went well, except for a bloody nose. But he said people were nice to him about it so it wasn't too bad (at least he didn't throw up!) Anyway he has a nice homeroom teacher and said his other teachers seemed fine as well. None of his close friends are in his classes, but there are kids he knows, and he makes new friends pretty easily. Also one of his friends is on his bus, so that's great.
Noah was so excited about school that he ran out the door 45 minutes before his bus came and I had to drag him back inside. He also wore a jacket, even though it was plenty warm outside. He wanted to wear gloves as well, but I put my foot down. He was so happy to see his bus driver and when he got home he said he'd had a great day. I'll be going in to talk to his teacher later and make sure we're all on the same page. There are only 7 kids in his class, and his best friends Jacob and Vanessa and Leah are all in it, so Noah just couldn't be more thrilled to be at school!
And I'm pretty happy about it too!

Summer (thank goodness!)

School's out! I'm so glad for Ethan's sake, he did not have a great year. He's a good student and a hard worker, but his teacher was terrible. Sarcastic, mean, belittling and unfair. Lest I sound completely biased, let me add that every parent of kids in his class I talked to felt the same. The principal has been contacted several times because of the teacher's behavior. Ethan would get back papers he had written with totally arbitrary corrections on them (seriously, he took off 10 percent once because Ethan hadn't tabbed over far enough on a letter he wrote). Anyway I just hope the experience hasn't soured Ethan on school! Fortunately he is done at the elementary school and is moving on to middle school in the fall. And although his teacher told him, "You're going to drown in middle school" I think he'll do just fine (and Ethan got the last laugh when he was one of only 2 students in his class to receive the presidental academic achievement award).

Now Noah, on the other hand, had a great year at school and was very sad to say goodbye. He loves his teachers and friends so much! I'm really thankful for all the hard work they put into teaching him, and he has really come a long way. He's much more understandable when he talks, he can read quite a few words, he learned to tell time to the half hour and do some basic addition. So we're making progress! He also can write his name and spell "Mom" (best Mother's Day present ever!) Most importantly, he's happy. And we have lots of great activities planned for the summer to keep him busy.