The boys went back to school the day after Corban's birthday. Earlier that week they had new student orientation. Corban had ice cream with the elementary students and Gabriel was thrilled to realize that his orientation involved a middle school water fight.
Corban is starting 4th grade with a class of five (four boys and one girl). Upper elementary is being structured a little bit differently this year due to some staffing changes and due to some conversations that we had with administration at the end of last school year and over the summer. Corban's teacher this year is finishing up her teaching degree this semester, so she is technically an intern. Almost all of her lessons are supervised and she collaborates a lot with the 3rd and 5th grade teachers. Miss Ford is so energetic and excited to be teaching and is already thinking creatively about classroom dynamics and such. Since all but one of kids in Corban's class is taking 5th grade math this year, his class joins 5th grade for this every morning. For lunch, art, PE, and music the third-fifth grade students are split into two mixed groups that rotate through the specials on different days. Lunch includes all three grade levels at once with assigned seating. So far this system seems to be going really well. Corban is making friends with people outside of his grade and I think that the variety makes things more interesting during the day.
Gabriel is in 6th grade. Middle school also changed structures since last year as the 6th grade teacher is not back this year. Due to that change, administration decided to integrate 6th graders in with the 7th and 8th graders more than in previous years. They also moved some 6th graders into different levels for some subjects. All of middle school has the same history and science curriculum. Gabriel is in 7th grade language/grammar and 8th grade math (pre-algebra). They also have study hall each day to get schoolwork done. Gabriel has been using that time to get work done and I'm really proud of him for that. Gabriel said that what he likes most about middle school is his locker and being able to switch classes without having supervision or having to get into a line (makes sense). On pizza Friday they just highlight their name and get their own pizza. The increased independence is nice for him, and even though having so many different teachers is a lot of figure out, he's doing a good job trying to be organized.
Almost one month in and all seems to be going well with a just some minor bumps. Growing pains of having boys that are getting older.
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