2, 4, 6, 8 Who Do We Appreciate?!

As the school year is beginning to wind down, I'm trying to maintain sanity through a crazy busy schedule of field trips, finals, track & field events, rehearsals, end of year concerts, amidst the regular homework and evening routine.  As the weather gets warmer and the sun stays up later, the kids play outside later also as we're all anticipating summertime.

One of my favorite weeks in May is Teacher Appreciation Week and we took the opportunity to celebrate Lily's teacher with little treats every day.  Her teacher is phenomenal and we could not thank her enough! Lily enjoyed picking out the treats and putting them together for her teacher each day.

Monday we sent in her teacher's favorite candy for a sweet treat to start the week! I left the words "Junior Mint"outlined so that Lily could color the letters in herself.  

"I may just be JUNIOR sized, but I was MINT for you to help me learn and grow big in kindergarten this year!"

Tuesday, which was actually Teacher Appreciation Day, Lily wanted to send her teacher's favorite flowers in for her. She also included a handwritten note that said, "Thank you for helping me bloom!"

Wednesday, we picked a drink for her teacher. Lily said her teacher drinks water with lemons or lemonade and since we'd already previously given her a personalized cup, we found a nice lemonade to send in and attached a little note that included the sweet phrase "easy peasy" that Lily says a lot. It was also Star Wars Day...May the 4th be with you.

"You've helped make kindergarten easy peasy lemon squeezy!" 

Thursday, was the PTSO Teacher Appreciation luncheon and we'd already contributed our donations for that, so Lily decided her teacher needed a sweet treat for dessert.  A local cupcake place Gigi's Cupcakes had these adorable mini cupcakes that were decorated to look like apples and we placed an order the afternoon before, picked them up that morning and had a perfect gift!

"I couldn't have picked a better teacher for me than you!"

Friday morning was a special day for Lily-- her very first field trip! We wrapped up Teacher Appreciation Week with Lily's favorite gift to give her teacher.  Earlier in the week, Lily had asked what her teacher's favorite thing to do in the summer is. The answer was reading books in the sun. We found a colorful, big beach towel and gave her a gift card for books.  The note attached said,

"Thank you for making kindergarten so much fun! I hope you enjoy your favorite summer activity--reading in the sun!"

It was important for me to help Lily celebrate her teacher this week. We didn't spend a lot of money and every cent we did spend was worth it. It was a perfect week for honoring someone who has been very important in all of our lives this year. 

 I created all of the tags in black and white so that I could print on colored or patterned paper. I saved on ink and it gave me more options!

 What do you do to thank or celebrate your child's teacher?

Then and Now

As I was looking through my pictures for Andrew's 6th grade graduation post, I decided upon seeing his 1st day of kinder picture that I had a perfect comparison picture post to do between Andrew's start of elementary school and the end!

Kindergarten

6th grade

Graduation

I had sent these to my mom last night and she called to ask, "Missing Andrew, are you?"

Yes.

Last Day of Kindergarten

Today was R's last day of kindergarten.

Wow.

Here's this young girl who started out full of excitement for the 1st day and then JUST the moment before her dad and I were leaving, tears filled her eyes and she wasn't quite sure what to think to a more independent young girl proud of her accomplishments and looking forward to first grade!

Here's a pic from that 1st day:

She has learned so much and grown so very much this school year!

Her favorite book is Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. We started out reading it to her, then she'd begin reading the sight words in it that she knew to finally reading us the entire story.  (Reading and writing is my passion as a teacher and it is just AWESOME to see it in kindergarteners when the lightbulbs come on for them!)

Her favorite special was gym because they do "exercises and fun things", she loved going outside for recess, she loved "Breakfast with Frosty" near Christmas. She loved addition and subtraction. At the beginning of the school year, Paula was her best friend and today, on the last day she says Aubrey and Allison.

Out of the mouth of R:

"I'm nervous that stuff is gonna be really, really hard in 1st grade, but I wanna be in this one teacher's class because if you get your tests right, she gives you 2 pieces of bubble gum."

"I'm gonna miss my classroom in kindergarten and I think my teacher was a good teacher because he teaches us a lot of stuff."

"How did kindergarten go so fast?"

Sounds to me like kindergarten worked out just fine for her. :)

We're very proud!