The Hucks Family: First Day of School!

The First Day of School!

The first day of school can be a very hard day when your the new kid on the block!

Hayden thought his first day was very long and boring. He said, "the kids were crazy like the kids in Mississippi, but the kids here don't stop when the teachers are present they actually get worse!" He said when the bell rings the kids just start running around like maniacs. They don't know what to do. So funny! He's excited to start to learn something. He's agreed to try out wrestling too as long as Brent agrees to volunteer as the coaches helper. Hayden thinks he will get destroyed. Brent says, "that's how you get better!" Hayden does not really like Brent's thinking. I think Brent is trying to light some fire under him.

Carson, Hayden, and Payton ready for the first day. I don't think Hayden looks very excited.

Sitting in the bleachers before school starts.

Halle! She kept posing for my pictures and then telling me to take another one. She wanted a picture on every step. Kara said, "I'm sooooo excited for school!" Halle likes to copy Kara sometimes because she loves Kara to death!! So she said, "I'm so ex....scared!" She was not excited about school. She was scared scared scared! She made me promise that if her teacher was mean I would find another teacher for her and if that teacher was mean I would let her stay home and be home-schooled!

Thank goodness she loved school! Her teacher seems very strict, but nice. Unfortunately there are 40 kids in her class and two teachers due to the school being overcrowded, which I'm not too thrilled about. She was told she was a star student on the first day so she was very happy about that. The next day she was the only student in the class that could write their numbers past 20 so she again was super happy. All those days in Mississippi of having to write and say her numbers correctly all the way to 100 have paid off for her. She also loves playing on the Monkey Bars at recess and has the blisters to prove it. This does not stop her though. She did have an incident on the play ground where a boy told her he was going to kick and kill her if she didn't get off the swing. I asked her where the duty was and Kara said, "Mom there is one duty and all the kids play over here and she stares at the fence!" Thanks my little observant Kara!

Kara the girl who was always so shy was so excited to go to school. She had the biggest let down I think, because she was so excited. Western kids are not quite as friendly as Southern kids, so she was in for a little shock. In the South the kids are required to address everyone and they know your name before you even say it, so when no one acknowledged her at school and the girls just ran off with their friends she felt a little left out. It was also very chaotic. Goodbye to the days of order. Kara said, "Mom I know now why they were so strict in Mississippi, because if your not you can't learn anything with all the kids yelling around you!" She had to stand during lunch because it was so crowded in the lunch room and some of the kids would not scoot down. The teachers just drop the kids off in the lunch room and then go on their own break so there is not much supervision. It has gotten better since the first day though. Kara said they divided off into groups to do a reading project. They had to read a passage and then answer questions together. She read the reading passage to the group while they talked amongst each other. Then she read the questions and tried to get them involved. They would not participated so she just got frustrated and got up and left and said, "I'm just going to do this on my own!" She said they all then looked at her like how are we going to do this we weren't even listening. That's my Kara. She reminds me of her Grandma a little. She might just have that class in order by the time she leaves: )

Kelton! Kelton said,"Mom I sure hope I can find a nice quiet spot on the playground to sit by myself since I'm not going to have any friends to play with." Kelton Kelton Kelton! Kelton thought he made a friend at school, but then the friend turned out to be not so nice. The boy that sat next to him told Kelton that the new boy from Colorado had stole Kelton's pencil box. Kelton said, "Mom all day long I thought the new boy from Colorado had stole my pencil box!" At the end of the day the boy next to him threw Kelton's pencil box at him and laughed and said actually I took your pencil box! Kelton was a little bummed out. He said I thought that boy was going to be one of my friends. I think he felt the worst about thinking that the boy from Colorado had stole his pencil box when he had not. It was a good learning experience for him and for Kara. We've decided it's best to take your time to find a good friend. Observe the kids and watch who is kind to their friends. It's better to go a couple of weeks with out any friends than to have a friend that is not kind and is going to be a bully!

In front of our new school. It's hard to believe that coming West would be a little bit of a shocker since we were only in the South for a year, but I guess when you go from one extreme to another its hard not to notice. To bad there is not an in between. There are things I love about both. The first day was hard for all the kids, except Halle. I think it is getting better for them and they all love recess and having a little more freedom for the most part. Kara is still afraid she is not going to learn anything, but hopefully they will start learning after this Labor Day Holiday!