First Day of First Grade

 Hooray for me for posting these photos before Christmas. Willa was ready for first grade! She has an amazing teacher, Mrs. Murphy. We ordered new school uniforms that have sleeves (no need for white shirt underneath), pockets, and no buttons or snaps! It felt like we won the lottery when we found them.

Here is Willa at Meet the Teacher. It was blurry, but it's also kind of crazy in there.

First Day! There are only four students from her kindergarten class in this new class. However, they are cute kiddos and I was so happy to get this photo of them as the kids lined up on the blacktop. I think my favorite thing about first grade is all the cute Jack-o-lantern smiles!

If you notice, Ryden's arm is on Willa's shoulder and they are "touching" hands. He's quite the Casanova and is regularly asking girls to marry him/be his girlfriend/wear his ring. He keeps everyone laughing and I'm glad they are in the same class again. His mom is the Room Mother and I asked if I could be in charge of decorating the doors for each holiday. I've really enjoyed it and it has been a brilliant way of getting my volunteer hours in! Since it's a charter school, they require about 30 volunteer hours per family. Up to 15 hours can be "bought" by buying supplies or giving money to the school at $5= 1 volunteer hour. But, even if you do all that, you still have 15 hours. It's tricky for me because you can't bring other children in when you volunteer. But by decorating the doors, I can count the time I spend gathering and prepping supplies outside the home, and then I go in after school hours to put the door up and since it's after school I can bring June and Lars with me. Plus, it's a fun and creative goal for me each month and I've been really enjoying it even though I rank my creativity down somewhere between "trace levels" and "non-existent". Thank you Pinterest!

First grade so far as been great! I've been surprised at what a jump it is from kindergarten to the reading and math they are suddenly expected to do. I didn't realize what a big leap it is. But I love her school, it's arts-integrated, so everything relates back to the arts. Or rather, all the art and creativity relates back to math and science. I think it's just such a fun and loving environment. This year they started a school garden. They go out during science and a gardener talks to them and they get to plant seeds and harvest produce (and then they've been selling the produce in a little pop-up Farmer's Market after school). They also have violin class once a week and everyone in the school learns (or attempts to learn) violin in addition to their regular music, dance, and other special classes.

It's also been really fun to be somewhere for a second year because we are getting to know different families and parents. It feels more connected for me. Willa walks out with a few friends to the pick-up each day and we all text each other if one of the kids won't be walking or is sick. I've felt a nice sense of community. We are excited for next year. Willa's kindergarten teacher has already called dibs on June and told me how I can request that we have her again.