The kids are all back in school now- even Josie has started preschool. She's very excited about preschool! She has only been to the classroom once, and it was with me for a parent/child orientation. She had no problem staking her claim over all the play food in the play kitchen, though. The class is small, with only 9 kids or so at this time. It should be an adventure! She was disappointed that they didn't have play doh on the first day! Oh well. She will be going to preschool twice a week. People ask me what I'll do with my time! What a laugh! Ummm, I don't know... What will I do with a whole 2 and a half hours! Hmmmm. Actually I plan to go to the gym one day (Tuesday), and go to volunteer at the elementary school on the other day (Thursday)... But I know that 2.5 hours is nothing, so we'll see what happens...
Here are some pictures from the preschool orientation... Filling out the Classroom Scavenger Sheet.
Playing with the food and kitchen set.
From the youngest to the oldest... Kate is in 10th grade. She is getting used to her classes, but I wouldn't say she's particularly excited about school. She talks mostly about the child development class she's taking... That's the class where they will eventually work with preschoolers too. She's learned the lyrics to "Itsy Bitsy Spider" and other such Essential Life Skills. I don't understand why she needs a class for this... Especially when she is the oldest sister to 4 younger siblings, one of whom is a preschooler!! She's also playing on the soccer team this year, which means a lot of practices. She seems to enjoy that, but honestly she'd prefer just to sleep all day and go on twitter all night. Pesky school gets in the way of that dream life... Anyway, this picture is of Kate on her way to catch the bus for the first day of school. She leaves the house at 6:40 am... She is exhausted all the time!
Steven and Isabel are in fifth grade this year. Top Dogs at the school-- fifth graders are the Big Kids. They are both patrols, too. This gives them the right to yell at other kids, which is awesome. "Get off the grass!" "Walk!" etc., etc. A real Power Trip. Sometimes patrols even yell at parents! They seem to enjoy their teachers and their classes. But everything is new now. We will revisit in a month and there may be some complaints! Steven is swimming with his winter swim team. He practices 3-4 days a week. He took a total of 4 weeks off this summer, and you could really tell! Amazing he could lose conditioning so quickly, but that's ok. His first meet is the weekend of October 8. Mom and Dad will be here visiting, so that will be fun. Isabel starts swim practices later on this month- so far she's just wanting to do the swim clinics, not the team. We will see if she changes her mind later on! The coach is very supportive of her trying the team, but understanding if she does not want to. Steven and Isabel are also playing in a small community volleyball league this fall. Practice starts tomorrow... They will be on different teams but will play against each other during the season. Other activities include cub scouts for Steven (last year in cub scouts- next step boy scouts but I'm not sure we'll continue on), and maybe girl scouts for Izzy. We have to find a new girl scout troop for her, but... I'm not eager to add Another Thing to the schedule. We will see if something pops up. Luke is in second grade. He is finally able to read fairly independently. I still read with him every day, though. I think he's doing loads better than he was a year ago. He's enjoying his teacher, who is new to our school this year. They have classroom pets, too- a pair of gerbils. Luke is very excited about those guys, and we get to bring them home for a weekend sometime to babysit them!!! Yay!!! I guess... Anyway, Luke is very excited. I just hope they don't escape! Luke will be playing in the community soccer league. He wanted to do cross country but I steered him away from that!! How long can he run? The real issue was they planned to practice two days a week. I know there's no way I can fit in two practices a week... Anyway, soccer it is. And he has swim lessons, and cub scouts. He'll be busy.
I am just busy trying to get ready for The Move in the summer of 2012, and shuttling kids to all their activities, doctor appointments, school functions, etc., etc. There's just a lot going on. I am also going to a Bible study in the area here which is like BSF but not quite as strict, so they say. We couldn't go to the first meeting because Josie was sick. But next week we should be able to go- they have a kids' program for Josie while I get to spend time talking to grown ups!
