Emily made the big move up to 1st grade this year. It is a big deal because it moves her from the primary building to the lower elementary building where she is mixed with 1st-3rd graders, many of whom are much bigger than she is. She handled it like a champ - jumped right in and tried to make sure that I didn't embarrass her by kissing her in front of other kids, etc. That being said, you can definitely see the transition from the confident look on her face in the picture above (before leaving the house) to the much more cautious look on her face in the picture below (after arriving at school). I had a chance to talk to her teachers recently, though, and they say that she is doing great!
In violin, Emily has started her twinkle beans! As you may recall from Abbie's adventures, a right of passage in Suzuki is to complete 600 repetitions based on six variations on Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star. Each one completed warrants a bean in the jar. Eventually, she will complete the process and then will have a Twinkle Recital. In the meantime, violin practice has been hit or miss. There has been a fair bit of, "I hate violin. Violin is stupid and boring. I want to play guitar." Fortunately, Abbie has been able to give her a pep talk about how it started out not fun, but now she loves it and is so glad that she is doing it. Hopefully that will sink in because I do think it is important for Emily to see this through for at least a while.
Finally, Emily and I have been doing more reading together. We finished James and Giant Peach awhile ago, and now we are almost 2/3rds of the way through the first Harry Potter book. It is pretty advanced, so I don't really ask Emily to read any of it (she has easier books from school to practice with), but she loves the story and is disappointed every time we need to stop (regardless of how long I have been reading for!). Once we finish the first book, we'll let her watch the movie and see what she thinks of it. Also, I'm sure that we'll immediately move to book two!
