The end of the school year

Many events come with the end of the school year, including:

Connor finished his second year as a member of the very-popular chess club, and has loved being a part of it. They held an end-of-the-year celebration, which included ice cream.

Field Day. It was a hot day this year, and thus the firetrucks/firemen were able to come back this year and spray the hose on everyone, which is always a popular event. The kids also love all the activities, and mainly just running around with their friends. Isabel thoroughly enjoyed her first official Field Day. Following field day Isabel's class held a classroom celebration. Very cute.

The girl in the picture with Connor is his friend Hannah. She's the one who really REALLY wanted to be in Brian's group when he chaperoned the 3rd grade field trip to the School of Mines, because she wanted to be chaperoned by an author. She loves Brian's book about the Colorado Rockies. :)

Lucas graduated from preschool! He had such a fabulous year with Ms. Wendy and the friends in his class. He learned so much, and his teacher said he is the best reader in his class. We are proud of him, and know he is very ready for kindergarten, although I can't believe he's headed there in August.

They had a lovely graduation ceremony, in which Ms. Wendy told some things about each child and then read something about the children that each of their classmates had previously said about them, unrehearsed or unplanned. I love the answers about Lucas; they show that his friends really do know him. Ms. Wendy talked about how Lucas always says kind things and gives her compliments, and she said his friends said about Lucas that he: "shares nicely, loves funny stuff, is my best friend, loves reading books, talks a lot, and I like to play with him." Proud of our boy!

Isabel finished off her kindergarten year, which was amazing. She was the top reader in her class (by a wide margin, said her teacher), she received an outstanding attendance award (didn't miss a day all year), made a ton of new friends, and just overall rocked kindergarten. She loved her teacher, Mrs. Schulte. She and school are a match made in heaven. Her Nate crush held strong all year, although what they really are is very good friends, but still. She is ready for 1st grade!

Connor made tremendous gains in 3rd grade, most notably in the social arena. Just last year he spent most of recess hanging out with the teachers or by himself, and this year he played with other kids every recess, tried new games and activities, and such. We have all noticed major maturity gains in Connor this year, and also he did not have any difficult transitions at the beginning of the school year or after breaks, as he has had in past years. I can't express how happy all of those developments make me. He had his first standardized testing this year, scored solid marks, is still a great reader, and won a recent multiplication challenge at the end of the year. His writing needs some work, and we are working on this. One thing at a time. I am so so so incredibly proud of Connor and how hard he has worked. He is well-liked by his classmates b/c he is kind and caring to everyone, and has just made amazing improvements. Love that boy.

 

I did simple but cute teacher gifts, thank heavens for the Internet-

  

 I painted a big Welcome to Summer banner and hung it on the garage on the last day of school, and they were so surprised and excited to see it as we drove home after the all-school picnic. Their reaction totally made the time and effort (which really were minimal) worth it and then some. Oh my word it was so awesome; they loved it so much and were so excited.

I had made bought some cute Jelly Belly popsicle molds, which we plan to put to good use this summer. For the last day I made some tropical popsicles - which we have come to call tropsicles - which we enjoyed outside while playing hula hoop charades (like that props game from Whose Line Is It Anyway? where every charade we did had to involve a hula hoop; very fun).

And thus we have summer vacation. Very excited, all of us.