the boy | matching tracksuits

The start of the school year approaches — only a little over a week and a half from now, I’ll be starting my twenty-fifth year in the classroom. Or twenty-sixth? Or twenty-fourth? Twenty-somethingth. This is a year of changes in a lot of ways. My room layout has been, more or less, the same for the last decade. If it works, why mess with it? But now I have a new desk from K and a new bookshelf from our house, so things are getting a little bit of a shakeup.

I’m also planning some changes in the simple things we do every day in class. No more article of the week for on-level classes as the bell-ringer. More discussion in class, more discussions that are simple, shorter. More writing, writing that is less structured and more choice-oriented.

The Boy and I spent a good bit of the late morning and early afternoon in my classroom, arranging things, putting books back on shelves, wiping down a few things.

And So It Begins

Friday 21 July 2023

Eco Tour

Saturday 15 July 2023

The Boy Returns

Saturday 01 July 2023

The Boy came back from Scout camp -- and he wanted sushi.

And we wanted, for dinner, fried green tomatoes.

Orlando 2023 Day 3

Wednesday 28 June 2023

The girls did better today: won two, lost one. The one they lost they should have won: it was not a team that dominated them, but they lost in the third set.

Finally, we have some pictures from the Boy: K went for the parents' night at scout camp today. He showed her around where they sleep, their bathhouse, and myriad other things -- all the details that make camp camp.

"E is having a good time," she texted, which assuaged my biggest worry--that he would be reluctant to engage with others and not really make any good friends.

The opposite seems to be happening.

Orlando 2023 Day 1

Monday 26 June 2023

The girls split their games today. They played one team from Charlotte who has beaten them three times this season. Our girls took the first set, and we up 6-1 in the second set, but the other team really kicked into gear and took the second set. We won't talk about the third set...

Discovery of the day: scooters for rent, which is how we traveled back to the hotel from the tournament. (We're only about a mile away from the convention center, so I dropped the Girl off this morning and then drove back to the hotel and walked.) Second discovery of the day: the scooters weren't as cheap as we'd calculated...

As for the Boy, I got a picture from his troop leader:

Since he's in his Class A uniform, I'm assuming this was actually from yesterday.

"He doesn't look thrilled," K texted.

"None of them do," I replied.

Hopefully, he's doing well.

Two Departures

Sunday 25 June 2023

The Boy left for Scout camp today:

I've been a little curious and worried about how he might take it: he's not actually going with his own troop because his uncle is coming from Poland with his family that week. "There's no way you're going to camp while Wojek D is here!" K exclaimed, so the Boy is going with a different troop. He knows a few people in that troop, but it's not his troop. He chose the troop he did because he wants to be with his friends, the friends who are going to Scout camp a couple of weeks from now.