Grade 5, Week 1

Last week Mikey started the 5th Grade. This year he's going to the school in our neighborhood, Walt Disney Elementary. (I've never been in a school before where black & white pictures of Disneyland from to 50s were a key part of the décor!) Cathy has been really anxious about his first time in public school (Mikey's been in Christian school and home school up until now), but Mikey said his first week at Disney was AWESOME! His teacher, Mrs. Sears, is big on reading, so she actually gave him a Roald Dahl book on registration/meet-the-teacher day so he could get started reading it right away. He loved the book! He tore through it as soon as he got home. He even got a 100% on his first homework assignment in "reading and listening!" He's pretty excited about starting computer class next week, too!

And... Mikey's going to be learning to play trumpet this year! We've already rented him his horn, and I showed him what I could remember about how to hold it, how to play it, that sort of thing. He got some books about trumpet from the library, and I printed him a fingering chart of notes and of a C scale so he could play around with that. I showed him a squinchy tone and then a nicer tone (I never really played trumpet on a regular basis, so my tone was still a LITTLE squinchy, but the point was to show the contrast). Unfortunately, at the moment he still generally sounds a little bit like the baby duck in the classic Tom & Jerry cartoons, but that will change quickly when band class starts. On the way home from renting the instrument, I was like, "Mikey, you'll need to go in your room and close the door to practice." Cathy was like, "I don't mind if he practices in the living room!" When we got home, Mikey took out the trumpet in the living room, and within 30 seconds he had traumatized the dog, terrified his sister, and changed Cathy's mind about where he would practice. :)

So so far, Mikey seems to really be enjoying his new school. He's looking forward to his second week. It's going to be a great year!