Back to School...

Today was Nate's first day of third grade. His teacher is the soft-spoken father of one of Nate's soccer teammates. Nate said that he is really nice. There were no arguments over homework tonight...it's amazing how easily they comply with assignments when they like their teacher! Of course, tonight's homework was simply to read something for 30 minutes and then write a couple lines about what he read. They are starting out slow. Since we don't allow TV on school nights, Nate would either be reading or playing after school anyway, so it wasn't such a big deal. I'm sure there will be more homework assigned as the year continues.

Nate has said several times that he feels sorry for the second-grade kids that have the teacher that he had last year. That just breaks my heart. He has a really strong self-image, so hopefully the damage that was done by that teacher last year will work itself out. I do worry about the other children that were in the class, though, and whether they will have problems down the road.

Nate is most of the way through the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince...it's what he read for his 30-minute reading assignment tonight. Tom said he read 33 pages in 30 minutes! The part he is reading now is extremely suspensful, a real page-turner. We are all eagerly awating the next HP movie, HP and the Goblet of Fire, which is due to release in November.

Funny anecdote: last week I was unpacking Nate's lunchbox after a day of summer camp, and saw that he had eaten his carrots--he gets a ziploc baggie of 4-5 baby carrots each day, all of which usually end up coming home virtually untouched by human hands. That day, however, the baggie made it back empty of carrots. I commented, "Wow, Nate, you ate your carrots. Good job." He didn't say anything. Later that evening, he came to me and told me that there was a kid on the camp bus in the afternoon who was hungry but had run out of food. He gave the kid his bagel chips (which he loves--they are greasy and garlicky--what's not to love??). "Besides," he said, "I can eat my carrots if I'm hungry." Wow. He empathized with another kid enough to give up one of his favorite snacks, and not only that-- but to do so when he himself was hungry and had nothing else to eat but vegetables! I hugged him and told him that he has a good heart. I'm not sure I would have given up my favorite snack when I was 8.

Ta for now. I hope the rest of the week is as smooth as today was. Hopefully I'm done filling out school forms too...