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NEWTOWN, Conn. (CNN)-

For the first time since the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Christine Wilford plans do something remarkable on Thursday that once was routine: drop her child off at school.

The last time her 7-year-old son, Richie, was in class was on December 14, when a gunman smashed his way into his school in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children and six adults.

As shots rang out, Richie’s teacher locked the door and huddled her students into the corner as the shooter roamed the hallways, wielding an AR-15 assault rifle and firing.

When it appeared safe, the children were then hurried away to a nearby fire station, where teary parents either reunited with their sons and daughters or learned that they had been killed.

Nearly a month later, Wilford said her son still has trouble sleeping and is often scared by loud noises.

But on Thursday, he will join hundreds of other Newtown students returning to class for the first time since the tragedy.

“We think it’s good he’s going back,” Wilford said. “If I leave my child anywhere, I’m leaving a piece of my heart, so it’s difficult to leave him.”

But Richie apparently isn’t afraid and says he’s looking forward to seeing his friends, she said.

They won’t be attending Sandy Hook Elementary, which police say remains part of an ongoing investigation into Adam Lanza, the gunman who also killed his mother before opening fire at the school.

Instead, Richie and his classmates are expected to travel to Chalk Hill Middle School in the nearby town of Monroe, where a green-and-white banner greeting the children hangs on a fence.

Newtown Public Schools Superintendent Janet Robinson said that part of the building had been transformed to resemble an elementary school.

“(We want) to have as much (of) a normal routine as possible,” she said. “Tomorrow is a regular schedule, and we will do the kinds of things that we know are good for kids.”

The school has also been outfitted with rugs and furniture similar to those at Sandy Hook to help ease the transition for students. Even the school’s pet turtle was relocated, Robinson said.

Security measures have also been increased, with a new system incorporating more cameras and locks, according to Jim Agostine, superintendent of Monroe Public Schools.

“I think right now it has to be the safest school in America,” added Monroe Police Lieutenant Keith White.

By Olivia Smith and David Ariosto

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Emilie Parker spends quality time with her family, including her dad and two sisters.

(CNN) — It was special, just like Emilie Parker.

That’s how Jill Cottle Garrett described Saturday’s funeral for her 6-year-old niece, one of 20 children and six adults killed at a Newtown, Connecticut, school.

The LDS Rock Cliff Stake Center church in Ogden, Utah, was filled with glitter and pink flowers — Emilie’s favorite color — “fancy” and effervescent like the little girl herself.

“Everything was special to Emilie,” her aunt told reporters outside the church. “Emilie was an example to not only her little sisters but to her family, to all her little friends. And now she’s an example to the world about purity … tragedy and forgiveness.”

Emilie had been practicing for a Christmas show, which would have been Sunday. She never got the chance to perform, but the songs — “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Silent Night” — were played during her funeral. Her two little sisters sang along, smiled, danced, even took flowers off Emilie’s casket and threw them into the air.

“They were celebrating Emilie and her life today,” Garrett said.

The girl was one of three Sandy Hook Elementary School students laid to rest Saturday, the last of the mass shooting victims to be buried.

One was Josephine Gay, who had turned 7 just days before Adam Lanza forced himself into her school and began firing.

A photo of the happy child, wearing a green hat and with glasses on the end of her nose, has been republished widely. On a Facebook memorial page, people remembered Josephine as “a beautiful little angel.”

Her funeral took place on a blustery day in Newtown, as strong winds whipped the hairs of emotional mourners outside Saint Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church.

Some who did not go inside the church instead left tributes at a makeshift memorial steps away, which was full of messages and flowers.

Services also were scheduled Saturday for 6-year-old Ana Marquez-Greene, who is remembered for a singing voice bigger than her size. A representative for her father, the jazz musician Jimmy Greene, described the girl as “beautiful and vibrant.”

The horrendous nature of the December 14 shooting — defenseless children and teachers being gunned down — has led Americans to conclude that something must be done.

But what? That debate about the steps needed to protect America’s children is setting up to be an intense fight between those calling for more restrictive gun laws and those who want guns for protection.

Most of the voices in the immediate aftermath of the shooting favored more stringent gun control measures.

A CNN/ORC poll taken after the shooting shows that a slight majority of Americans favor restrictions on guns. Conservative Democrats and even some Republicans who have supported gun rights have said they are open to discussing gun control.

On Friday, the National Rifle Association weighed in, making it clear the organization would not budge an inch.

Instead, Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre blamed video games and the media, and said the gun rights group will fund a team to devise a program that would put armed guards at all schools. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” he said.

The NRA’s position sets the stage for a contentious battle between one of the most powerful lobbying groups in Washington and the Obama administration, which has promised quick action on “real reforms” to gun laws.

CNN iReporter Jason Asselin applauded the NRA’s stance, even proposing that U.S. troops returning from war zones serve as armed guards. “Right now, our schools remain unprotected,” he said. “Action is needed. Our children deserve to be protected.”

But others panned the NRA’s position.

Democratic Senator-elect Chris Murphy, whose district includes Newtown, called LaPierre’s words “the most revolting, tone deaf statement I’ve ever seen.” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, blasted them as “a shameful evasion of the crisis facing the country.” And former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said he found the remarks “very haunting and very disturbing.”

Rick Huffman, another CNN iReporter and a retired police officer, cut up his NRA membership card in the wake of the mass shooting, which he said changed his views on gun control.

“There’s got to be a limit to what they let citizens have at their disposal,” the Michigan resident said.

Sunday will mark a new chapter in this horrific saga, as the first full day when U.S. and Connecticut flags will be at full-staff since the violence, as directed by Gov. Dannel Malloy.

After that, the quest to understand what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary, and why, as well as how to prevent more such carnage in the future, will continue.

CNN’s Greg Botelho and Mariano Castillo wrote this story from Atlanta. CNN’s Jareen Imam contributed to this report.

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(CNN) -

The National Rifle Association is grieving the lives lost in last week’s school shooting in Connecticut, but it is no-weapons policies at schools that put children’s lives at risk, the group’s executive director said Friday.

Wayne LaPierre spoke to reporters in an appearance that was interrupted twice by protesters shouting anti-NRA slogans and bearing banners in front of his podium, including one that said, “NRA killing our kids.”

The nation’s most prominent gun rights lobby joins “the nation in horror, outrage and earnest prayer for the families” who “suffered such an incomprehensible loss” in Newtown, Connecticut, LaPierre said.

However, he said, schools remain a target by criminal gunmen because they are not protected by armed security the way other important institutions are.

Policies banning guns at schools create a place that “insane killers” consider “the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk,” LaPierre said.

Such policies leave schoolchildren “utterly defenseless, and the monsters and the predators of the world know it,” he said.

Friday’s event was billed as a news conference, but LaPierre only read a statement; he took no questions.

A growing memorial in Newtown pays tribute to the 26 people killed.

One week ago, a gunman forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School and shot 20 students, six adults then himself dead in Newtown.

Adam Lanza had killed his mother before arriving at the school.

Across the nation Friday morning, church bells rang in remembrance of the victims. The NRA was among those groups that observed a moment of silence at 9:30 a.m., the same time as last week’s massacre.

Despite the relative silence early on from the powerful lobbying group’s offices in Fairfax, Virginia, the NRA is regrouping in anticipation of a massive legislative push for gun control legislation, a gun policy expert said.

Kristin Goss, an associate professor of public policy and political science at Duke University and author of “Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America,” said that strategy is part of the organization’s playbook after an incident such as this one.

After such a terrifying event, when there is a national outcry, the NRA typically lays low, Goss said.

“They’re used to seeing this cycle, express condolences and hope the attention will shift to a new issue.”

Obama starts gun control debate

This week, the Obama administration put into motion an effort to change U.S. gun laws.

Vice President Joe Biden met with Cabinet members and law enforcement leaders at the White House to start formulating what Obama called “real reforms right now.”

More than 195,000 people have signed an online White House petition supporting new gun control legislation.

A slight majority of Americans favor major restrictions on guns: 52%, up five points from a survey taken in August after the July shooting inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people died, according to a CNN/ORC International poll released Wednesday.

Biden will lead a White House effort to craft proposals aimed at preventing another tragedy such as the Newtown shootings. The recommendations are due sometime in January.

That same month, several lawmakers have promised to introduce or reintroduce gun control legislation, ranging from a reinstatement of a federal ban on assault weapons to banning the sale of high-capacity magazines.

Since the shootings, a number of conservative Democrats and some Republicans who have supported gun rights have said they are open to discussing the issue.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said she will introduce legislation to reinstate the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. The White House has said that the president supports that effort.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi took her own step towards reform Wednesday by announcing a new task force on preventing gun violence.

Pelosi said the task force will work towards restoring the assault weapons ban, strengthening the background check system, and addressing mental health and violence issues.

The NRA, with its roughly 4.3 million members, is the standard-bearer for protecting the Second Amendment. It is also the source of hefty campaign donations.

During the 2012 election cycle, the NRA donated $719,596 to candidates. Republicans received $634,146 of that, according to the Center for Responsive Politics’ analysis of federal campaign data.

Some $85,450 went to Democrats, many of them in states that are considered more conservative when it comes to gun control laws.

Tributes ongoing for victims

Carloads of teenagers from a Minnesota school that suffered a mass shooting in 2005 headed toward Newtown on Thursday to offer their support.

Also Thursday, burials were held for three children and two teachers.

More than 2,200 miles west of Newtown, Ogden, Utah, the hometown of shooting victim Emilie Parker, was festooned with pink ribbons as her parents brought her body back for burial.

“This sucks — there’s no reason for us to be here tonight,” her father, Robbie Parker, told friends and well-wishers at a memorial service Thursday night. “And I’m so thankful for everybody that’s here.”

His voice trailed off as he struggled for composure. Seeing the pink — his slain daughter’s favorite color — made him and his wife, Alissa, “feel like we were getting a big hug from everybody.”

Also buried Thursday, at an undisclosed location, was Nancy Lanza, the shooter’s mother, whom he killed before the school rampage, said Donald Briggs, a friend of the family who grew up with her in Kingston, New Hampshire.

Plans had not been finalized for the burial of the gunman, her son, Adam.

Three 6-year-olds were among those buried Thursday: Allison Wyatt, who loved to draw and wanted to be an artist; Benjamin Wheeler, who loved the Beatles; and red-haired Catherine Hubbard, who loved animals.