Reuther Crusader!

Matthew is in middle school at Reuther!!  Not quite the way we imagined middle school would have started but instead he's sitting in front of the computer at home and not getting to feel the excitement of running into friends in the hall or experiencing the fear of getting lost trying to find the next class or having lunch with his friends and catching up on the latest Fortnite events.  There was a short few weeks in October where he did get a chance to go back to school in person, but that was short lived due to a spike in COVID cases and things have been remote since the end of October.  Despite being remote, he's been doing a great job adjusting to middle school - although I think most of the time things are very easy for him.  I'm very thankful we decided to sign him up for advanced math even though his test scores were 2 points shy of officially making that cut, otherwise I think he'd be very bored in the regular 6th grade math class.  He got straight As his first semester of middle school and during parent/teacher conferences, all his teachers said he's been doing a great job in class - always attentive, contributing, helping others and has his video turned on.  So thankful and blessed that he's such a wonderful student and eager to learn.  I love that he likes to tell me random things that he learns from his classes after his remote learning is done for the day.  Middle school students are heading back into the classrooms next week so hopefully all goes well and it remains in-person for the remainder of the year.

Below are pictures of him and his friend/our neighbor, Zach, on orientation day and him dressing up for in-person school (huge change from his regular sweatpants/hoodies attire!) and a video of one of the first songs he learned how to play on his viola.

A few things to note at this time.  Other than remote learning, Fortnite and Rocket League is what occupies a lot of his free time.  So much so that I have to limit him to 2 hours a day on school days and he probably plays around 3-4 hours on weekends.  That doesn't include the time that he's playing Clash Royal or Minecraft or whatever other games he plays on his phone...while I'm not looking.  Sometimes I'll walk into the room and I see him immediately turn off and throw down his phone.  It's tough with it being winter and not much to do outside.  Recently he started running a mile every other day on the treadmill, which is great!  He said he wants to make the basketball team next year so I tried to encourage him to do something that will help him achieve that goal especially since there's no Upward Basketball this season and we don't have a basketball hoop.  I think he's resorted to dribbling a bouncy ball in the basement...it's better than nothing!  Hopefully things will return to somewhat normal by then so that there will actually be a team for him to try out for!