Back to School!

Abbie had her first day of school yesterday. It is hard to believe that she is in 7th grade already! It was just a half day, but they still rotated through all of their classes. It was quite a whirlwind, but she came home pretty happy. She likes all of her teachers (so far). It seems like her French teacher will be much better than the one that she had last year. Her English teacher has a great room set up with cozy beanbags and soft-glowing lamps, so she is excited about that. I think that she had a little bit of apprehension about her honors math class, but it is good group of kids and she thinks that she has a really good teacher, so that has alleviated some of the worry.

Today is the first full day, so there will be the usual lunchroom drama, etc. but I think that she is prepared for it. She is also prepared to stay organized as much as possible and seems to have retained the system that she developed slowly over the course of last year. She definitely seems more on top of her game with it being her 2nd year as opposed to her 1st. She has already chosen her athletic classes for the year - ballet in the Fall and Winter, and then softball in the Spring. You may notice that her hair is a bit longer again. She has decided to grow it out and I think that part of that decision is so that she can actually get it into a bun for ballet. :)

She has also already checked books out of the library and has decided to bang out the entire quarter's worth of AR tests over then next couple weeks. She reads all the time and the tests are very short, so I am glad that she is taking a more proactive approach. Also, this year she is now allowed to stay on campus unsupervised after school, so she will be heading to the library and starting her homework while she waits for someone to pick her up. Hopefully, she will be able to develop a routine and stay focused so that there will be less to do in the evenings.

Her Sting Orchestra rehearsals (outside of school) also started yesterday. She came home pretty excited from that because the conductor told her that in the next concert cycle (later this Fall) it will be time for her to join the 1st violin section. She has been waiting for this for a long time, as the past three years she has been part of the 2nd violin section and she was starting to get impatient about being moved up.

All in all, the school year is off to a good start and so far there isn't too much chaos on the horizon. Yay!