<p>First day of school for S today–can’t wait to hear how it all went. He was really excited but concerned about orchestra, as the teacher hired over the summer accepted a job at a community college last week. We don’t know if they have hired anyone yet or if there will be a sub today. Keep your figures crossed we get someone good! The program hasn’t been the best to be sure, nor the worst.</p>
<p>Fingers crossed, momsings!</p>
<p>Thank you, PN. They are still in the process of hiring, so it will be another week and a half according to S. How is your S15 doing so far this Sophomore year?</p>
<p>Two days into 10th grade for D15 - not too bad so far. I do see a big difference between 9th and 10th grade - no more test re-takes, extra credit, etc. She has a drill sargeant for her first honors class (US History) who is very old school- feet on the floor, eyes straight ahead, assigned seats, and a bit of a yeller - but she has to learn to deal with different types of teachers. She’s been lucky to get many nice, funny, “cool” teachers - so now she learns to deal with the opposite. </p>
<p>I know she is concerned with the new emphasis on note taking and tests, instead of relying on homework and projects to improve her grades. But that’s how college works, so it’s good for her to make the adjustment.</p>
<p>She is in concert choir, has joined the international club, will try out for a school play next week, and will be able to join the French Honor Society if her 1st semester grades are at least as good as last year’s. So even though she dropped soccer, she’ll still be plenty busy!</p>
<p>First day of school here, too.</p>
<p>D2 is happy with her Math teacher (one of D1’s all-time favorites) and long-term Latin sub.(Latin teacher is out on maternity, and won’t be back till second semester.) She didn’t get the hoped-for senior chemistry teacher (mostly teaches AP Chem and only 1 section of H.Chem). The H.Chem teacher she did get is out with knee surgery, so they had a sub. D2 is enthusiastic about her English teacher, but still making up her mind about her World History teacher. Drama is the same much-beloved teacher as last year.</p>
<p>Minimal HW today, but I’m sure that’ll ramp up fast.</p>
<p>Momsings, last year our HS had to hire a new Latin teacher two weeks into the school year. A non-optimal start, but it worked out OK.</p>
<p>Ugh. S1 been sick the past 2 days with a high fever, but still sent him to school today anyways for the first day. Was editing his summer assignment up to the time he left. He was too delirious to type, so I got the honors.</p>
<p>Oh, what a bummer to be sick on the first day! Hope he feels better quickly, nj2011mom. My D and her younger sister have been been back for 3 weeks now and it seems like they and all of their friends are sick with one thing or the other right now. I think they are all passing around the respective germs they picked up over the summer. Blech.</p>
<p>D tonight told me she loves most of her teachers and is ambivalent about 1 or 2. She says AP Euro is hard, and a lot of work, but that it took D’12 time to adjust to her first AP course (the easier AP Human Geo), and she is sure she’ll settle in. </p>
<p>First grades are in (generally summer assignments and a few quizzes) and she is already mad that she only has a 91 in Anatomy (counts like an AP for GPA). </p>
<p>V’ball is also in full swing with 3-4 hours per day (including Saturdays), and she is active in SCA, so she is going to have to be efficient.</p>
<p>Crepes, I also have a December kid who isn’t all that social or carefree and who is too serious for her own good. Maybe there was something in the air in '97…</p>
<p>D has two older sisters and has seen the college thing play out twice and has visited both at their dorms. I’d like to think that this helped rather than hurt but I am not sure. It may have just made her hyperaware. I am going to try to keep college visits on the way back burner until next year. With older D, it was the opposite. I took her on visits much earlier in an attempt to keep her motivated and to give her hope that there was more fulfilling stuff to come. Every kid is really different.</p>
<p>Yesterday, I received a call from the Assistant Principal asking if I would like to help interview for the new orchestra teacher! Cool beans. It was a surprise to be sure. I’ve never done this before, and I wonder if I should be thinking of an intelligent question or two of the candidates. Any ideas?</p>
<p>First few days of school–great so far. We’ll see how my young man does when he has to be there at 6:10 in the am. Yikes.</p>
<p>Taking S to his first college fair tomorrow. I’m not sure I’ll let him sign up for any mailing lists yet, but he can start his “shopping” there. </p>
<p>I’m also thinking of signing him up for the PSAT for practice. He took it last year. Wondering, do your schools have Sophs take the test and do they prep them for it?</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li> Do you think my son will be your favorite student ever?</li>
<li> How will you go about demonstrating that?</li>
</ol>
<p>Seriously though, i’d ask them about what they think is important to teach the students. It night sound obvious, but around here there are a bunch of performing arts high school groups that spend all semester polishing three contest pieces and very little time on sight reading, listening, music history, etc. The kids come out knowing how to sit there and be groomed to play a concert with lots of practice, but they’re fairly handicapped when it comes to actually doing what a music needs to be able to do, even on a student level.</p>
<p>Ezilyamused - all of the sophomores at our HS take the PSAT for free. But we have to pay for them to take it junior year. Weird. The schools don’t prep them specifically. My kids don’t tend to prep for the SAT other than taking a practice test or two during the weeks before taking it for real.</p>
<p>PN–your “serious” question is the one I thought of too. It is important to teach it as an academic class (at least it is to me.) Our choir teacher does a great job of this, and I would like to see it in orchestra.</p>
<p>Ezilyamused–our school does no test prep (ACT, SAT, PSAT, PLAN) whatsoever. Do other schools do that? Just curious…</p>
<p>@momsings, our school doesn’t do prep either. Most people don’t take the tests seriously. But a local community college offered a SAT prep course in the summer and they’re doing it now, until Oct. SAT. One of my D.'s friends (a junior) is taking the course. She said it was just a little bit helpful - “better than nothing”. </p>
<p>I think when D. takes her SAT for real, (probably next fall) she will do some prep at home. This year they’re taking PSAT next month. It’ll be interesting to see how she does. I may have her do a couple sample SAT tests to prepare for PSAT. ( She took the SAT in middle school for CTY. )</p>
<p>My D took the PSAT in 7th and 8th, and then skipped it last year. She’ll take it again this year, but won’t prep. The school does no prep for this, even for the Juniors. It does offer a class in SAT prep I believe, but she won’t have room in her schedule for it. I do think it’s good practice for the sophomores.</p>
<p>Plan for next year is to prep for the SAT and PSAT at the same time. I haven’t decided whether she’ll take a class. She does well on these typically, so as long as she’s diligent about studying (hmmmmm…), she may do it on her own. Stakes will be high for us for PSAT next year.</p>
<p>1. Do you think my son will be your favorite student ever?
2. How will you go about demonstrating that?</p>
<p>Most excellent! Thanks for the laugh PN. :)</p>
<p>Pinot Noir and Momsings, that is a great question for the prospective candidate. I am new to this forum so I don’t know what instrument your son plays or how you feel about hierarchy in orchestras generally, but from my point of view, I’d like to know how the candidate feels about it. I love when orchestra teachers shift things around enough that all kids have to take their turns in back and front of a section. My D is one who prefers to head to the back of the pack when given a choice and who is finding, much to her surprise, that she likes being section leader. She’d never have discovered this if she hadn’t been prodded by her orchestra teacher and hadn’t been forced to try it out from time to time last year.</p>
<p>Suzy, that’s our plan as well. D took the SAT in 7th grade for CTY and hasn’t since. LOTS of kids prep for the practice PSAT in 10th grade but the school does not offer any prep on its own. I’m not sure what the point is of prepping for the 10th grade PSAT. I guess it makes sense to see the basic format of the test in advance so you eliminate anxiety distractors but beyond that it makes more sense to me for the kid to get a feel for their baseline. My older kids’ scores jumped dramatically from 10th to 11th grade, even on diagnostic practice tests. </p>
<p>Agree, the junior year PSAT has high stakes.</p>
<p>Hi All!</p>
<p>Crazy here with back to school for her and moving our son back to college.</p>
<p>She has been almost overwhelmed between the start of classes almost two weeks ago and the demands of being on the varsity swing team-if things don’t start to settle down for her by the end of this week I think I am going to have to talk to her about dropping some of the EC commitments. We’ll see what the week brings.</p>
<p>Her school lets 10th graders take the SAT but we pay for it-they charge $20 which she brought in today. She will not study at all for it as I want to see what her baseline is as well-if she gets good enough scores it will be worth it to study for it next year but if not that will also be very valuable information-I don’t think she will test as well as her brother did but who knows?</p>
<p>I have enjoyed catching up with everyone-it seems like for the most part the kids are settling in. :)</p>
<p>Disaster! D2 wants to reread the Harry Potter series ( for the xth time) Ran upstairs to pull the first one of d1’s book shelf and HORROR, they are gone. D1 moved into a townhouse just off campus and took them with her. Full disclosure they were all bought for D1, she grew up with the series. Now tempted to buy d2 the full set for xmas. I am sure she will want a set to take to college with her and keep for her kids.</p>
<p>Pepper - I was worried about your d, you mentioned on the college 2015 thread that things were imploding a little for her. D2 was a little overwhelmed this time last year with juggling a varsity sport too. This year she is coping a lot better. I think you are right to give her to the end of the week to see how things settle down.</p>
<p>D2 has taken the pSAT since 8 th grade, with no school review etc. The school pays for it. She has scored pretty well and it has been interesting to watch her score rise each year.</p>
<p>The orchestra teacher interview process was so interesting today. The music head of the district had a list of questions that we asked each candidate, so I didn’t have to come up with anything. We had the questions and wrote down notes while the candidates answered the questions. Then we got to watch them work with the top level orchestra. There was a candidate that clearly rose to the top–we all agreed.
3girls3cats–it was interesting because the candidate we all liked, had the lead of the 2nd violins actually lead his section as if he were a Principal when they had the melody. It was a great strategy and improved the section for that line of music. The kid was clearly taken aback though (in a good way). When S got home, I told him I couldn’t discuss it with him but was curious as to which candidate he liked the best. He picked the same one we did.
Today was the start of Jazz 1 for S. 6:00 am start time for the next three years! Good thing this is his passion!</p>