Carnation Elementary students jumped right into their lessons Tuesday, Sept. 6, the first day of school in the Riverview School District.

“They’re usually pretty quiet on the first day of school,” said Principal Doug Poage, on a tour of the classrooms. In Doug Higgins’ music room, students were rhythmically tapping their xylophones and practicing their “eagle arms,” the posture they took before playing. Next door, Allison Hoover was going over some of the rules for PE, and for life—respect, politeness, and gentleness, even in tag.

“You left the T off of ‘soft tag,'” a quick boy named Anthony told Hoover, as she wrote the rules on her whiteboard.

Hoover then handed out puffy orange mitts for a game of “freeze tag,” the students eagerly hopped up and started running around the gym. Between screams and laughs, the running students helped each other out by “unfreezing” the students who were already tagged with a wave or hand shake. School was back in session.