1st Day of School - 3rd and 6th Grades

Henry started school almost a month ago and I think this is Jack's third week of school. Their years are off to a great start!

The night before school I made them read The Kissing Hand, just like we do every year. Instead of sweetly listening to the book, they now interject with helpful comments such as, "This is a baby book", but then they settle down and listen. We have listened to this book every year on the night before school since Jack was starting his first year of preschool. That's nine years of The Kissing Hand. So it's not going away anytime soon.

Henry - 3rd Grade

Henry's teachers are Ms. Thompson and Ms. Baker and they are awesome. So far his favorite activities at school have been taking care of the 3rd grade gardens, independent reading time and recess! He's read the entire Percy Jackson series just since school started and loves it. It rained on the morning of the first day so we had to hurry to get pictures in before we got wet.

Here he is at his cubby on the first morning. He told Jack and I we couldn't go in with him at first and then he said he guessed we could come in, but just to take a picture. He was pretty happy to be back at school with all his buddies. His best friend since preschool switched schools and now goes to EPiC -- they are happy to be together again!

Jack - 6th Grade

After we dropped Henry off at school, Jack and I headed to the Big Biscuit for breakfast and then we were off to his new school -- Liberty Middle School. That day was orientation and he got his schedule and locker. After failed attempts by BOTH of us to open his locker, a teacher saved us and showed him how to open it. In my defense, it is a hard locker to open! He was excited to put a few decorations up, including pictures of Jamaica and Poppy.

After orientation day, he still had an entire week before school started! We had a great week together and soon it was time for WEB Day. This is another transition day just for 6th graders and a few 8th grade leaders. After WEB Day we met up at Culver's with all of his EPiC buddies for a lunch with familiar faces. These guys have been together in the same class since 1st grade. I'm so glad they got to see each other because they all got split up and went to different middle schools.

He is riding the bus this year, so he walked to the bus stop with our neighbors. I couldn't wait for him to get home to hear about his day. His first day was great! His favorite classes are Orchestra and Industrial Tech, he sits at a lunch table with all of his friends and he's enjoying all of his new independence. The other day he came home and said he and his friends noticed a boy sitting by himself at lunch. So they all got up and moved from their table to sit with the little boy who was by himself. I am so proud of him and his friends for showing kindness to someone who needed it that day -- especially in the middle school cafeteria. We are so happy, but not surprised at all, that he is loving middle school.

He was very excited about his new laptop after the first day.