Two Kids. One School. Finally!

Finally -- one drop off, one school. Big changes for both girls.

For the first time since Marissa was in kindergarten, Lindsey and Marissa are finally in the same building. Their school is broken into Lower (grades K-3) and Upper Campus (grades 4-8) buildings which are an annoying distance from each other. Too far to walk but so short to drive that you spend more time at stop signs than actually driving.

Lindsey is in 6th grade;  middle school for her. This means she has 3 minutes between classes to get to her locker, change materials and get to the next class. She was nervous as could be Sunday night. She spent hours organizing her school supplies, labeled the binders and determining which ones would be used for which classes.  I kept reassuring her that all the 6th graders would be in the same boat, no one would know their schedules or where they're going, but it didn't do much to allay her fears.

Marissa is moving to the Upper Campus, where she will have more autonomy and responsibility. She also has the fabulous Mrs. O'Hara as her teacher, who was Lindsey's 3rd and 4th grade teacher. She already loves her teacher and her class. Even though she doesn't have many friends in her class at the beginning of the school year, knowing Marissa she will have lots by the end.

Another big change is that for the first time in their lives, the girls are taking the bus home from school. Now that I'm at a job where I'm working from home, they can take the bus which drops them off around 4:30. And a couple times already their first week, I was in our St. Paul office for the day and I gave Lindsey the key to the house. They let themselves in and the girls had their backpacks hung up, lunch boxes on the countertop and had started homework by the time I arrived home.

Marissa brought home a math test with specific directions from the teacher that students work on it alone with no corrections from parents, so the teacher could get a sense of each child's knowledge base. Marissa completed it in 10 minutes flat and when I looked it over she had gotten everything right, a far cry from last year's start to the year with her math assessment.

Lindsey got to sign up for an elective specialist and she opted for choir. She decided to drop orchestra after two years of viola.

More independence. More challenges. More fun. Bring on the school year!