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Saturday, July 23, 2016

First day of school assignments

Today the girls brought home their first bundle of take-home papers. I could lie to myself and vow to go through them right when they come home instead of hanging onto them all year,  but considering I have a piece of artwork from May 2015 sitting on my desk right now I think I'll play it safe and promise myself only that I will never let two years' worth of school papers build up on my desk.

The first few days of school are filled with such excitement as you settle into your new classroom and routine and make new friends. You have a whole year's worth of curriculum to plow through, which is thrilling and daunting. It's fun to see their papers/projects at this point in their journey.

Miriam's first assignment was to collect five items that represent her and bring them to school in a brown paper bag. She had to pull them out one at a time and tell the class about them—and, by extension, herself.



She chose an Egyptian flag (because she was born in Egypt), goggles (because she loves swimming), a little soccer ball that she chose at the library as a prize for summer reading (because she enjoys soccer and reading), a pencil (because she loves to write), and a big ol' bug (because she likes to put bugs in her mouth).

I told her that she could leave the part out about holding them in her mouth (though, let's be honest, she probably told the class about putting bugs in her mouth anyway).

She also wanted to take in a 9-volt battery (because she likes licking them), but I convinced her to take the goggles in place of the battery because one weird thing that she likes sticking in her mouth was probably plenty. She didn't need two!

I suppose she could have gone with a whole "things I enjoy sticking in my mouth" theme. It would have made her introduction really short. "I'm Miriam and I enjoy sticking things in my mouth. Bugs. Batteries. Lollipops. My right thumb. My left thumb."

She's got a bit of an oral fixation or something.

She'd probably like me to add that she's completely kicked her thumb-sucking habit. Though she was still sucking her thumb at the beginning of last school year, no one has seen her suck her thumb in ages. Even when I check on her in the middle of the night—no thumb. So I suppose it's best she didn't go the oral fixation route for her project.

So far she's loving her new class!

Here's part of Rachel's first day assignment:


She is really proud of being a nerd. Last year their class wrote books and had them professionally bound. She called her book A Family of Nerds and wrote all about her family. I've never been so proud.

Rachel really is cool, brave, shy, awesome, nice, and...a nerd. I feel like I've written a lot about Rachel lately, so I'll leave it at that. She's enjoying her new class as well and seems pretty comfortable in her new environment.

Here's hoping the rest of the school year goes as smoothly as this week!

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