Katya's First Day of School

Ok - so this isn't the best picture but is the best one we have! This is Katya on her first day of school. She started school on July 27th. Alex thought it would be best if we just took a picture of her walking to school, since he didn't think that any of the other sixth graders would have parents there "snapping pictures". He was right, of course! But I am sad that I didn't get a picture of her sitting at her desk. My mom has a picture of me on the first day of school sitting at my desk with a cheesy grin on my face all the way up through sixth grade. Maybe we can get one at Back-to-School night...

People ask me all the time if she likes school and I have to say - since she doesn't "pout" when she has to go to - my assumption is that she likes it. She gets excited to show me all the stuff she has done during the day - which is very cute, considering she is in the sixth grade! Being the little "social butterfly" that she is, she already has two friends named Alyssa and Alyson. According to her teacher, she will start to giggle in class and get the entire class giggling along with her.

I actually had a meeting today with the Principle, her teacher, the ESL specialist, and two women from the District to talk about how Katya is doing. They made us put her in the sixth grade, despite our request that she be put in the fifth grade, with the promise that they would evaluate where she is at a couple of weeks into school and possibly move her back to the fifth grade. According to her teachers, she is doing very well and doesn't need to be moved back and since Katya also objects to being moved back, we will work with what we got! My concern is that she is pretty far behind in math (she didn't know her times tables when she started) but her teacher has been awesome and gives her tons of individualized attention (which is amazing considering how many other students she has) and the ESL specialist pulls her out of class almost every day to work with her in reading. We found a thirteen year-old girl that speaks Russian that tutors her in math twice a week and since she has a dog, Katya likes going there (and thankfully must be getting her "dog fill", because she hasn't asked us for one again!).

Her teacher and the ESL teacher both agreed that Katya is their favorite part of the day - which is so sweet! It makes me not feel so guilty for just dumping her at school every day so that she can be taught :) Thanks Ms. Ramker and Mrs. Ebert!