Yesterday morning, I stood in line to register Andy for a new school next year. It is called BASIS Tucson (www.basistucson.org) and it starts at 5th grade and goes straight through to 12th. It has a curriculum that is fairly demanding and is very different from the county schools. The BASIS school is a charter school so there is no tuition, and no transportation to and from, so we will be driving Andy to school every day. This is the pits, but I am hoping that he will get such a good education that it will be worth it. I am planning on the other guys going to this school to so I don't have them scattered all over Tucson.

The school has a very different approach to education -- they emphasize the basics of education. In English class, they do actual grammar work and sentence diagramming. They reinforce this grammar work by having the kids take two years of Latin In the sixth grade, they will have three classes each of biology, chemistry and physics per week. This is in addition to their Latin, classics class, social studies, music, art, math, and English classes. In fifth grade, Andy will have an entire year of geography. In the fifth grade, everyone learns to play the recorder, to read music, and the basics of music theory. In sixth, they continue this and then in seventh grade, they move on to keyboards. The art classes include art history and theory. In seventh grade, he will have a year of rhetoric and public speaking. I am really excited about this school.

Luckily, Andy is also very excited about this school. We went to the open house last week and we were immediately separated -- parents to a presentation by the school founder, and kids to their own open house where they went to five different classes. Andy was a little concerned about this, but when we met up with him again, he was really enthusiastic about the classes. He was most impressed with the mini chemistry class since they blew up a gummi bear and there were purple flames. He talked about that a lot! He was also totally into the Classics class and he made sure that we met the Geography teacher, who also made a big impression. I hope this enthusiasm remains.