An Excerpt...

A friend from Lafayette sent an email asking about how the boys are doing in school. I thought I'd share an excerpt...

Hey there! Things are going well though really busy. The boys played second season baseball so we've had games three nights a week. It ended Wednesday so things should calm down for a bit. They both really like their school. Nicklas seems to be doing well but he hasn't really made any friends. They have a fitness track at the school so during recess, he walks around that - usually by himself. That makes me a bit sad but it doesn't seem to bother him. He definitely hasn't connected with anyone yet and we're encouraging him to try and start conversations with other kids. But I also don't want to push him or make him feel pressured. It's hard to tell if the school work is harder or easier. They do ability grouping for all kids in all grades. So even the kindergarteners change classes. In first grade, Seeger changes rooms for math, reading, handwriting, and writing. So for math for Nicklas, he's placed in the fifth grade math class with about 6 other kids from his class. Another 6 or so go to 6th grade math and the rest are doing 4th grade. They don't change classes for any other subject. For spelling, they have to write out a poem or song - not just memorize a list of words. They do a lot of writing which will be good for Nicklas. His teacher told the parents that the school expects 4th graders to spend 45-60 minutes a night on homework and that for the gifted class, even longer. That seems like a lot to me! But she promises that there is no homework on the weekends.

The school is really close to the University so there are a lot of international kids from married student housing who attend. They are continuing to adjust schedules and class rosters because students are still enrolling as parents are moving to Bloomington for the school year. IU classes don't start until Monday. I would say at least a third of the students in Seeger's class is Asian. Overall , the school is 62% white. Unfortunately, Nick's class isn't as diverse. What I do like about his teacher is how civic minded she is. She talks to the class a lot about the problems of the world and how to make their community better. One day, a student voiced a concern about other students wasting their milk at lunch. So the class discussed the issue and want to come up with a solution. They got a 35 gallon bucket and now during lunch, all the kids that don't finish their milk are supposed to dump their remains in the bucket. Nick's class is going to find the average of how much milk is wasted. They haven't figured out what their next steps are but I think it's cool that they're getting the opportunity.