Kindergarten Graduation

You heard right - kindergarten graduation. Apparently now they have kindergarten graduation and fifth-grade graduation and eighth-grade graduation, in addition to the usual high school graduation. I'm told this is because kinder is separate from the rest of the elementary school. Then in fifth grade you're moving on to middle school, and in eighth grade you're moving on to high school.

Anyway, before I get to graduation, a couple of end-of-year things. Sometime during the last week of school, Anna took the picture below of Mrs. Tesluk with a bunch of the girls from their class. Emily, the second from the left, was one of Ever's favorites. Aviana, Leela, and Ever are in the middle in front of Mrs. Tesluk. Naomi is in the "Girl Power" shirt. She wrote something to Ever at the end of the year calling her her best friend, which warmed my heart.

They had a special Mo Willems day. Anna picked up the girls that day and took pictures. The nest hats are inspired by There is a Bird on Your Head! Ever, Leela, and Aviana:

BASE did an end-of-year performance the week before school got out. Ever only participated in one number. I was in the back so didn't have a good shot, but Ever's fourth from the left.

Then kinder graduation was on Thursday, June 7.  A fair number of people brought balloons and/or flowers for their kids. Candy leis were sold on site, and Ever started crying because she wanted one. I didn't have my wallet and thought the whole thing was crazy anyway, but Anna took pity and bought her one.

The kids walked in to "Pomp and Circumstance."

Goosey did not cooperate with my attempts at photos.

They sang a few songs. It's really hard to hold a camera still with a Tiny crawling all over you.

When they started practicing this one, Ever came home asking me to play it over and over (except she preferred some kid version to the Bob version, which was painful to me):

I couldn't trim this next one because I love the song and find it happy, and I LOVE the loud-singing kid on the far right, Ayden, so much. Also Tiny's rolling around on the ground is an added bonus.

The teachers presented the graduates with certificates.

The grand finale was a dance number. I love Ever's moves when she does the stepping-backward part. Leela is fab. And again, lots of greatness with the boys doing the floss, etc. Also Ever totally blocked Blaize, to her right (our left), the WHOLE time. So many things to love.

The littles were incredibly difficult during this graduation business - Tiny, in particular. I had to release them to play on the playground equipment partway through. We ended up staying loooooong after everyone else had cleared out because they never wanted to leave (and I was chatting with other lingerers and the teachers).

Parents picked up report cards at graduation, but it was so incredibly difficult getting all my girls and stuff to the car that I ended up putting our envelope down and leaving it by or in the classroom. Mrs. Tesluk recovered it and left it in the office for me to pick up later. I was so proud when I read it. The second trimester report card had never made it home, so the second trimester comments and the third trimester comments were new to me. I was very pleased that Mrs. Tesluk described Ever as a natural leader and a hard worker who gives every assignment her all. 

ST Math (Jiji) is the math program they use. Ever did a bunch at the end of the school year, so she was actually about 96% through 2nd grade by the end of the year, not 82% as the report card states. She did the last little bit over the summer, so she's through 2nd grade now.

Anna and I were talking to Mrs. Tesluk after graduation, and Mrs. Tesluk said Leela and Ever are bright and don't get discouraged when faced with something hard. She said that Leela takes time to process everything, while Ever just gets it right away. Anna said she's seen that - like they'll be driving, and Leela will need Anna to explain something again. Ever will say, all exasperated, "Leela!" So Ever's maybe not so patient with Leela (and we need to work on that), but she's really smart. She is an amazing little girl, and Jim and I are so proud.