Hear ye, hear ye! By order of the great State of Minnesota, Griffin is officially permitted to menace the roads without a parent.
After much diligent practice through the challenging winter and spring, Griffin passed his road test yesterday and has his preliminary driver’s license. The official card should arrive by September. Hardly an hour after getting his license, he drove himself to trombone lessons. It’s a new era.
It is Oliver’s first day of second grade at Cornerstone, and the first time that he won’t have any siblings on campus. Still, he’s a veteran of the place after something like six years (preschool + K-1) and has no qualms.
It’s the first day of school at SPA. This is Griffin’s fourth year on campus, and his second year in the upper school. It’s Maggie’s first time, joining the seventh grade. (This is Andrew’s 15th year.)
Sarah has regularly completed the YWCA Women’s Triathlon around Lake Nokomis since her first outing in 2018. This year, however, Maggie decided to join her! They did the “Super Sprint” rather than the full Triathlon because Maggie’s not old enough for the full version yet (you have to be 14+). The Super Sprint consists of a 200-yard swim in Lake Nokomis, a 7.3-mile bike loop, and a 1-mile run to the finish line. Maggie had some trepidation going into it, but handled herself like a champ. She crossed the finish line at a full-on sprint.
Video clip of Sarah and Maggie as they head from the lake to their bikes:
This week marked Griffin’s first time as an official, paid employee. He worked as a counselor at one of the Lego robotics camps that he used to attend. After a full week, he says he’s “ready to retire.”
Each student at Maggie’s graduation ceremony had a series of slides that showed them at different points during their years at Cornerstone. I’ve extracted the pictures from Maggie’s slideshow as a gallery below, or you can see the slides as they were originally presented at this link.
Maggie’s graduated today from Cornerstone Montessori Elementary School which she has attended since kindergarten. It was a beautiful ceremony on a perfect day. Next year, she will attend SPA (where Daddy teaches) as a seventh grader. She will be on the same campus with Griffin (entering 10th grade) but most of their classes are in different buildings. We are enormously proud of her!
Well, it was Griffin’s first day, even if I had already been at school for a week of meetings and classroom prep. It’s hard to believe that Griffin is done with middle school!
Today was Oliver’s “Fly-up” ceremony where he transitions from Children’s House into the elementary school. In Montessori terms, he’s not only moving into a new classroom next year (as a first grader), but he is moving into another developmental stage (or “plane of development”). Here’s how his teacher described it in a recent email:
Fly-up is a celebration to mark the passing from one plane of development to the next. You probably already see signs of your second plane child: abstract thinking, reasoning mind, strong sense of what is just and fair, strong inclination to be with and work alongside peers. The fly-up ceremony is a visual representation of this internal growth.
At the celebration, each child will run down the hallway from the Children’s House wing, out the door and into the elementary courtyard where they are greeted by the elementary children, teachers and parents.
In honor of the occasion, Oliver decided to wear a festive fancy shirt and a top hat from our costume closet. He looks pretty dashing! (Maggie dressed up for the occasion, too.)
Griffin and I spent some quality time in front of the mirror this morning practicing shaving. We made it with no nicks or lost body parts.
