Lively began the first grade when she was only 3 years old. Her 6-year-old brother was so nervous about beginning first grade alone that her mother told the school that Blake (who was extremely tall for her age) was also 6 years old so that she could accompany him. "After a few weeks," Lively remembers, "they said they would have to put me in mentally disabled classes because I wasn't up to pace with the rest of the kids. They thought that I was slow because all I wanted to do was sleep while the other kids were doing their projects.