Rachel's January

Rachel sprained her right wrist at taekwondo on Friday. They were practicing takedowns, and she landed hard on it. This part of their training isn't actually taekwondo, it's more mixed martial arts. The injury prevented her from playing in her team's third basketball game on Saturday. They won their first two games, but lost this one. She also had to sit out of skiing on Sunday, which she didn't appreciate. She's still in some pain, so we're not sure about this weekend, yet.

Meanwhile, we've ordered a women's size basketball for her. My basketball gets caught in the nets at the school playground, so it's hard for her to practice without me (or someone else to knock the ball down). She's hoping the smaller ball will pass through more easily. And it's the size her team plays with.

Also meanwhile, we're trying to decide where she'll go to middle school next year. Hamilton International had an open house on Tuesday. That's the HCC pathway school, which also has immersion-level Spanish classes, about three miles from home in Wallingford. McClure had an open house tonight. It's the neighborhood school, about a mile away, over by Big Howe playground and the swimming pool. McClure doesn't have the advanced learning programs, and only has introductory Spanish, but will have more of Rachel's friends in attendance, and is smaller.

We took Rachel out to dinner on Tuesday before attending the open house, while the other kids went to Paola's house. She had a lime Italian soda to go with her sushi. The school is quite big, with three floors, two mostly classrooms, multiple music rooms, a large library, an art room and a drama room, and flex spaces between hallways and classrooms whose use wasn't entirely clear. We talked with one of the Spanish teachers and learned how they handle placement of students. Rachel will have to undergo an oral/written assessment to see whether she's ready for the immersion track.

All six of us went to McClure tonight. It is a smaller school, two stories, with most of the classrooms upstairs. Its library is also smaller, but has plenty of copies of The Hunger Games, we were told. It has a shop room, and a video editing room that we didn't see. Nicole talked with one of the math teachers to compare the programs. Rachel has the opportunity to do math two years ahead at Hamilton, depending on placement, but just one year ahead at McClure. However, it seems both schools follow a district policy of not having separate cohorts for advanced math students, so in either case Rachel might be in classes with older kids. Nicole is somewhat worried about this, but her fifth grade teacher thinks Rachel would do fine in that setting.

Nicole and Rachel went back to talk to a Spanish teacher while I took the other kids out to the car, but we haven't had a chance to debrief, so I don't know what they learned. We weren't expecting to get much out of that program, because they only have introductory classes. I think we're still leaning towards Hamilton. It would be nice to stay in the neighborhood, but Rachel's teachers think she would thrive in the more challenging cohort, and the added bonus of a better language program makes it hard to pass up.

Here's another recent photo of Rachel. She attended a sleepover birthday party Sunday night, where she got to decorate a cake. She begrudgingly shared some with the rest of the family for dessert on Monday.

Rachel and I started reading A Wrinkle in Time a while back, but we've stalled because of other reading projects throughout the household. She just finished a book for school tonight, called Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson. She was asking about new series to read last night, because I've just ordered some more books for her siblings, so if anyone has suggestions, let us know.