Sasha was seen carrying a pink, magenta and gray backpack and wore blue jeans and a brown jacket with a hood. Her hair was pulled into two braids.

Not to be outdone, TMZ has an "exclusive": The lunch menu from Sidwell Friends. Corn chowder! Zucchini bread! Cheese tortellini! And! More from WaPo:

The media did their usual stakeout thing to record the historic occasion. We can reliably report some details, such as: Sasha carried a JanSport Trans backpack with a camouflage pattern of pink, magenta, gray and white camouflage. Attached to the backpack was a turquoise, three-eyed Uglydoll keychain.

Despite the fact that a 2nd grader's lunch, hairstyle and keychain are "news," the associate headmaster of Sidwell Friends maintains that everything there is same old, same old: "It's been a very normal day, the first day after winter break," Ellis Turner tells the Post. "Nothing special was prepared for any of our students."

Still, what happened while the girls were at school? Write Richard Leiby and DeNeen L. Brown for WaPo: "We assume that some sort of teaching took place. Also, discreet gawking."

Soon-to-Be First Girls Have First Day of School, At Sidwell, Everybody's Top Subject [WaPo]
New kids on the block: Malia and Sasha Obama [MSNBC via WaPo]
Obama Girls — The Lil' Ladies Who Lunch [TMZ]
Earlier: Sasha & Malia's First Day Of School: Backpacks & Breathless Reporters
Today Show Tries To Respect Obama Girls' Privacy; Fails

And unlike the reporter from the Today show, CNN took pictures right in front of the school, in case you're dying to know what Michelle, Sasha and Secret Service dudes look like from the back.

There's also a play-by-play of what transpired this morning as the girls were dropped off: Sasha carried a bookbag! A French photographer called out to Sasha but called her Malia! Writes Politico's Nia-Malika Henderson: "There wasn't much to see."

Meanwhile, people swear that Sidwell Friends is the kind of school where being the daughter of the first black president is "no big deal." A senior at the school tells CBS news that while the Obama buzz is all over campus, it's not likely to last much longer than recess. "In every grade at Sidwell, you have the children of diplomats and of wealthy parents, but you really don't notice a difference," says former student Delaney Kempner. Sure, sure. The kids may have moms and dads who are rich and powerful, but no one can beat Barack Obama as a sheer global phenomenon right now. No one. Hence the CNN photographers.

What remains to be seen is whether, as Politico's Ben Smith muses, having kids at school will "help humanize the president as time goes on" or "make public life more like a reality show than it already is." Okay, but: Hasn't Barack Obama already been humanized? That just leaves the circus-like reality show. Not a great way to spend your childhood.

First Day Of School, Malia & Sasha Prepare For Sidwell, Malia And Sasha Start School [Politico]
Malia And Sasha's First Day Of School [CNN]
Obama Girls A Student Here? No Big Deal! [CBS News]

Earlier: Today Show Tries To Respect Obama Girls' Privacy; Fails

Long before the days of women's suffrage and equal rights crusades, Quakers were unique in integrating women fully into the ministry; the schools were not only coeducational, they focused on equipping girls with all the same spiritual and intellectual apparatus as boys. It's no accident that Susan B. Anthony and Lucretia Mott and any number of leading suffragists were raised in Quaker homes.

On the other hand, a piece in the Wall Street Journal reminds us that unlike so many families in this country, the Obamas have the means to select a private school, "and no one begrudges them that choice given that Washington's public schools are among the worst in America." The WSJ piece notes:

Most D.C. parents would also love to be able to choose a better school for their child, but they lack the financial means to do so. The Washington Opportunity Scholarship Program each year offers up to $7,500 to some 1,900 kids to attend private schools, but Democrats in Congress want to kill it. Average family income for kids in the voucher program is about $22,000. Mr. Obama says he opposes such vouchers, because "although it might benefit some kids at the top, what you're going to do is leave a lot of kids at the bottom." The example of his own children refutes that: The current system offers plenty of choice to kids "at the top" while abandoning those at the bottom.

Obviously the President-Elect is giving his daughters an education some Americans can't give their children. But which politician would not?

In any case, the challenge for Sasha and Malia will be some attempt at normalcy (Facebook banned? Oh no!) Newsweek reporter Suzanne Smalley received an email from a parent whose child attends a school the Obama girls visited last week: "My son asked one of the Secret Service agents yesterday why he was hiding behind a doorway in a hall," the parent wrote. Apparently Malia "had asked him to hang back so she could be more 'normal.'" But! The kids at the school referred to the Secret Service agents as "bodyguards." Not normal, but kind of cool?

Why Sasha and Malia Will Go to Sidwell Friends [Time]
The Sidwell Choice [WSJ]
Just One More Frame! [Newsweek]

In an open letter to the Obamas, D.C. mom of a public school attending child and writer Stephanie Mencimer pleads with Barack and Michelle to embrace the Washington school system:

One of the major problems with the city's schools is that they've been all but abandoned by middle-class parents who can use their political clout to hold schools to higher standards and to demand sufficient resources for them. Right now, DC schools are at a critical turning point. Some middle class families, particularly with very young kids, are starting to come back into the system, which holds great promise for the future of education in the city. But keeping those families—and convincing more to do so—is a major challenge. The arrival of the Obama girls in a DC public school would send a powerful message to other nervous yuppie parents: your kids will be ok here—come join us! Those parents can be a major force for good that, unlike tax cuts, does have a trickle down effect on lots of kids whose parents don't know how to write grant proposals or lobby Congress. And imagine the turnout for PTA meetings should Michelle join!

Mencimer does concede, however, that some of the schools in the D.C. system are so bad, "I myself have serious reservations about eventually sending my own kids there." The commenters on DCist are relatively tame about the issue, and most of them say the Obamas should do whatever they think is best for their children regardless of how it looks to the community. There are more wackadoos in the comments section of the Washington Post, some of whom are still talking about Bill Ayers and ACORN and generally frothing at the mouth.

Mencimer says she was vastly disappointed when Bill and Hillary Clinton decided to send Chelsea to the private Sidwell Friends. And after all, the D.C. public school system was good enough for Amy Carter…although she did turn out to be a protest starting radical hippie feminist.

Public School Still A Possibility For Obamas [Politico]
Public School For The Obama Girls, Please? [Mother Jones]
Where Will Sasha And Malia Go To School? [DCist]
Michelle Obama Visits Georgetown Day School [WaPo]