<p>Thanks blueiguana – I should have consulted you before these pieces landed on my doorstep! PB outlet – what a great idea – so much better to be able to see things first hand. If I can find one near me, it’s worth a drive.</p>
<p>mathmomvt – are your kids like mine when they’re bored? They start cleaning closets and offering to help out around the house? kidding…</p>
<p>I’m like fogfog – glad to take a breather from all the Class of 2011 craziness. I have a dear friend whose D is '12 and I’m trying to relay whatever I learned (which isn’t much).</p>
<p>fogfog thanks for asking. We are fine here – nasty storms last night, but as far as I know no further serious flooding from those storms. We have more on our way, but hopefully they will also pass through quickly. The ground is saturated, so there’s nowhere for the rain to go!</p>
<p>I did wind up with my 10yo in my bed for a while last night at 2am because there was some really loud/disturbing thunder at that time, and he was a bit unsettled!</p>
<p>1st day of school for S’14. Only one of his classes posted a supply list before school started, so we could only get those supplies (plus a few marble comp books just in case). I hope H can take him to Staples before I come home from work. The line was around the store last time.</p>
<p>There’s got to be a better way. In elementary and middle school, they’d post the supply list a few weeks before school started. In HS, they wait. Why? Does the lesson plan change so drastically from year to year that the teacher honestly has no idea what’s required until school starts?</p>
<p>Week 2 of sophomore year and reality is kicking in. The good news: S was accepted into the elite a Capella group. The bad news: rehersal is two nights a week after school until 7:30pm, so he gets home after 8pm and still has homework. He has been up until midnight and past most nights, and is exhausted. I think of him as my organized child, so I don’t think he’s wasting study time at school. He just has a <em>lot</em> to do and is going to have to up his game to stay in a good place. Looking forward to results of the first few deliverables so we have a sense of where he stands.</p>
<p>With D away at college, I am trying to restructure evenings around the ‘new normal,’ and it is clear that I need to start having picnic food (individual pot pies, pasties, etc.) available for these late nights when we cannot realistically sit down for dinner. Any suggestions from folks with experience at this? I am used to cooking a fresh dinner every night and my kids hate leftovers, so this is new territory for me.</p>
<p>@ highhead - I’m all too familiar with that territory as S11 and S14 both participate(d) in an EC that ran late nights 2-4 nights a week and on weekends. Make good use of your crock-pot is my best suggestion. Things that can be cooked and then turned to the warm setting such as stews work very well. We did a lot of beef stew, chili (traditional, chicken tortilla, and white), speg sauce (make the noodles ahead if you want & then microwave to heat), meatballs can be put over pasta or on sub rolls and topped with cheese, stroganoff, bean soup, etc. I never had good luck with pot roasts this way, but a chicken w/o veggies can sit on warm and do alright. A salad can be put together quickly. My kids were totally fine with all of this, but then they are all scavengers and don’t mind leftovers so they are not picky eaters. :)</p>
<p>My S11 had ECs that ran until 8pm. We usually ate dinner without him and he re-heated leftovers from our meal when he got home. (He also took snacks to school with him sometimes to tide him over – he did a lot of growing during HS!)</p>
<p>D2 started jer sophomore year at a new school this year. First day was smooth and she seemed excited about the possibilities of her new school. She said she “loved” all her teachers and that kids were generally nice to her. Plus she has driver’s ed first quarter which she is thrilled about. But yesterday on our way home, she started sobbing, saying she hated her new school, that she’d never have friends and that no one was friendly to her. Hopefully it gets better because I don’t want her to be upset all year. She is in a spring sport so when that starts, she’ll have a group to hang with, but until then, it is a bit of a challenge for her to find people to eat lunch with/hang out with after school. </p>
<p>We are both pleased with D2’s classes and schedule. H English III, H Span III, H Chem, R Alg II/Trig plus PE and Choir. She is not taking a social studies this year b/c at her school, the 10th graders take US Hist which she took in 8th grade and her only other options were APUSH and AP Human Geo-neither of which she wanted to take. </p>
<p>Her only sibling -D1- launched in Aug so we’re adjusting to the new normal as well. I have to learn to cook less food. I’ve also noticed that we go through food and other consumables (shampoo, coffee, TP to name a few) at a much slower rate than when D1 was at home.</p>
<p>Helped D2 cover her textbooks “old school”, using paper grocery bags. After all these years of book sox, so funny that she wants to go retro. </p>
<p>D2 absolutely freezes up during standardized tests, so I am going to try a gentle introduction to the joys of the SAT and ACT by giving her the SAT question of the day, printed out–less stressful than seeing it on the screen. We’ll see how that goes. </p>
<p>My phone wallpaper image is a picture of D1 and D2 at D1’s college dropoff. There’s enough of a resemblance between them that people often think they’re twins. Lots of people at D1’s school were asking D2 if she was also an incoming freshman.</p>
<p>Just decided to join this thread as my S is hs class of '14 and find so many of you on here from the class of '11 thread I was on with my daughter. Looks like a quite a few of us have new college freshmen along with our new high school sophomores!</p>
<p>In my situation D’11 was not the same caliber of student that S’14 is. He’s taking his first AP class this year(AP World) and is also in Pre Calc and an all honors curriculum. D’11 never took an AP class and never reached that level of math even by HS graduation.</p>
<p>So, point of the story, it will be different with S’14. Can’t wait until he takes the PSAT in Oct to get a baseline for his scores. D’11 was low-to-average on SAT/ACT and I’m hoping S’14 does much better.</p>
<p>Anyway, glad to have found all of you and look forward to the next few years together as we prepare this group to “launch”!</p>
<p>Slithey Tove, that’s funny. Dd complained that one of her teachers stated that he despised book sox, so he preferred for them to cover their books with paper bags. DD, the “green” girl, was thoroughly disgusted with his disregard for the environment and immediately placed her book sock (that was already stored in her backpack) onto the book right in front of him. We’ll see his this year goes…</p>
<p>I’m surprised your daughter was opposed sydsim. I would think repurposed brown paper bags for book covers is fairly green. My kids have had plenty of teachers that didn’t like book sox so we have a roll of brown recycled wrapping paper like you use to mail packages. When they come off at the end of the year they go unto the recycle bin.</p>
<p>Thanks, glido! He tried out last year and didn’t make it (they rarely take freshmen), and I was pleased by his response to that. Rather than saying ‘I don’t care about it anyway,’ he worked really hard at singing this past year and was one of two sophomores accepted into the group this year. Even the fact that he will have to carry a Teddy bear in all performances (as the youngest member) has not damped his enthusiasm.</p>
<p>blueiguana, you are absolutely correct…but we don’t have any paper bags. But we do own a complete set of sox that continue on year after year! And I’m sure she feels that the kids aren’t as up on recycling as she is. HAHAHA The arrogance of youth!</p>
<p>Ahhh, I see. I wasn’t trying to put down your daughters conviction at all, I just thought that part was curious. The fact that she cares is awesome. You are correct, when young people care about something they own it and adults and their peers who aren’t on board are all clueless in their eyes. Sheesh!</p>
<p>We have to buy our students’ books for school–and after about 6th or 7th grade, they stopped using those printed book covers/sox…I think they maybe used the solid ones in 8th grade…I dont recall.</p>
<p>In high school no one covers their books. However–for all of the paper backs they have to buy, literature or workbooks, I buy clear contact paper and cover those soft covers with the contact paper. It makes the covers a bit sturdier which my kids liked and helps keep them for getting quite as beat up in the backpacks.</p>
<p>DS’14 got pulled out of class yesterday afternoon to have his first meeting with his College Counselor! Wow - that seems early. He asked my DS what colleges interested him and then told him what we would have to do re gpa and ECs to be attractive to that school. he looked up DS’s gpa on the computer and told him he was on track. he also gove him a list of other schools to look at. I am pretty impressed.</p>
<p>Gloido - I am very impressed and hope that S’s school does the same. The school my older child attended did not do this, I had to take it upon myself and then they acted like I was bothering them.</p>