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That sounds lovely!

Day 4 of school.. I'm getting an ulcer

What happened now?

I think our principal is saying things to me in person and not going to follow through. I recapped our meeting from last week and apparently I must have misunderstood everything he said about dd7 and some of what he said about ds5

I'm sorry! Being stressed about working with the system is what helped led to homeschooling for us. Hope you can work through your early year problems! I think the first few weeks can be super stressful for everyone.

My daughter turned 7 this summer and we're starting homeschool back up next week. She was tested this spring and really showed her colors. She's had a pretty easy ride so far, but she's young for grade and we're still working on writing/spelling here. It's coming strong though and I'm going to push a little harder this year.

She's going to dance 4 hours a week this year after her dance instructors advanced her up with the 8-10 year olds as a newly turned 7. Not sure what to think of that, but hopefully it won't be too much and will be a good challenge for her. I wouldn't consider it if we weren't homeschooling! Violin has been a good challenge for her too and she's racing now in that as well. This kid has attitude though, I have to tread a little more gently than with my first who is pretty much a rules kind of guy.

Have a great year everyone!

DD seems positive about her new gifted school so far and has made a friend whom she seems to adore, which is kind of huge. I don't really have a handle on things yet. Reading seems to be entirely free reading so far (maybe they are evaluating, but DD says not since Day 1). She is excited about science, which was awful at her old school and looks much better here. They seem to put a lot of emphasis on writing, which is good. However, spelling words are much too easy and it sounds like they are going to stick to "We teach one grade level ahead" for math. Time will tell. It looks like she is going to have a lot of homework, which, fortunately, is probably fine.

Frannieandejsmom,

If you are going to have to keep dealing with schools, some advice...start carrying a notepad with you. Jot down whatever the teacher, principal, gifted specialist, etc. says about what will happen for your DCs, and summarize it an a confirmatory e-mail that day. This can really help to get them to hold to what they agreed to, and if they write back clarifying that your understanding was in error, it at least lets you know early on if it is not going to come to pass.

Worst-case scenario, there's always homeschooling...

Well, I guess I misunderstood - he won't go to 4th during 3rd math, she's going to have him do an extra reading/blogging activity during part of 3rd grade math. Ds says he doesn't mind missing afternoon recess, so starting next week will go to 4th for math, and we'll see how it goes. He also got his first set of spelling words this week, he has to look up the definitions and write a sentence using each word; and they also have to do other activities using their spelling words, which count towards their grades. I'm SO excited - this is the first year they actually have grades - I guess it's the little things that make me happy

So far, so good. DD8 likes her class and her teacher, and came home yesterday looking forward to going back today.

DD10, not so much. Hopefully that will change as we get a little further into the year and figure out the appropriate strategy for her.

Much later than most of the board kids, DS7 started his school term today. He'd been anxious about it, as he's newly in the big-kids part of the school ["I'm going to be terrible at everything!" - err, no] but the day seems to have gone well, apart from his having managed to lose his diary already. Meeting with his new maths and science teacher on Friday; wish us luck. Her email read rather stiffly, but DS had a lesson with her today, and she had something appropriate for him to do, and he liked her and it; I'm assuming (trying hard to assume!) that it's just that people who don't conduct their entire lives through email the way DH and I do often write stiff emails (particularly, perhaps, to the scarier parents ;-)

ETA: the headmaster found his diary for him, and we bumped into the maths/science teacher who in person seems lovely. All's well with the world :-)