Kindergarten = complete

We have reached the end of our first full year of school.  It's been a wonderful experience.  Having a January birthday, my 5.5yr old was more than ready for the daily interaction and mental stimulation that began in September.  She grew and flourished under a fabulous teacher, who also happened to be my nephew's kindergarten teacher 6 years ago.

We petitioned for Miss Rose to attend a school one neighborhood over from us.  There were mixed reviews about our local school and nothing but good about this other school.  It was the right choice for us.  This school has a very high level of parental involvement and I think they raise a lot of money to help subsidize things at the school.  The school has a full-time music teacher, which is unique these days and Miss Rose went to music class weekly.

Our school didn't have a "kindergarten graduation" (which I was ok with) but the Kindergartners did put on a special musical presentation called "How Does Your Garden Grow."  They performed it for the whole school one week, and then did a night performance for families the next week.

The few photos I took during the performance were dark and hard to make out.  Someday I'll figure out how to make my camera take decent photos under those circumstances.  It shouldn't be so difficult!  Miss Rose was a farmer.  Other kids were flowers, weeds, and various vegetables and a few garden critters.  It was adorable!  Miss Rose was very expressive and engaged, which pleasantly surprised me.  When she's done stuff like this in chuch, she's usually very shy and reserved.

She did spend much of the performance telling the boy next to her the various things he was doing wrong.  My little Type A daughter!  See him on the right?  Making silly faces!  The cute blonde at the bottom of the photo is Miss Rose's best friend from her class.  They've had a few playdates and will hopefully be getting together over the summer as well.

Last Friday, was the end of the year celebration for the Kindergarten classes.  There were 4 stations run by each teacher and I volunteered with Miss Rose's teacher, facilitating the parachute.

We did a fun game I've never seen before with the parachute.  Four children sat back to back in the center and we wrapped the parachute around them until it reached their shoulders.  Then on the count of three, everyone pulled and stepped back, making the kids in the center spin around and out of the center.  Lots of laughter!

Miss Rose recieved the "Peacemaker Award" for always being kind and fair with her classmates.  When I picked her up on the last day of school, her teacher told me of the award and said it was "the best award in the class."

We are SO proud of our girl.  I'm thankful for her school and look forward to first grade.  If I've figured it correctly, for ONE year, we'll have all three girls in one school.

Speaking of which, I realized the other day that Gracie is the same age Miss Rose was, when Gracie was born.  But now, with Gracie at that age, we already have a one-and-a-half year old.  Did you follow that?  It just means we had 3 kids in 5 years and it's kinda crazy to think about sometime.  But it's our life.  And I love it!

And now...time for summer fun!  I really enjoyed not having to rush out of the house this morning for school.  While I still have to leave for work, having a bit more flexibility with our morning schedule is really nice!