Awesomeness!

That’s what we were today!  Pure awesomeness!  Today was our graduation – and we blew everyone away!  Great reviews from everyone we talked to afterwards!  They loved our performance of our songs!  People actually cheered when we were done!  I was shocked!  I was also extremely proud of my children!  They were fantastic!  And soooo adorable!  They all sang – and they sang together!  And none of them shouted – they actually sang!  It was pure awesomeness!  Really – no lie.  Just a great, happy day!  Absolutely perfect.  They made me so proud I almost cried!  I love them – they’re the best – I’ll soooo miss them when they leave me!  But for now, I’m reveling in their awesomeness…

practice makes perfect…

…or as close to perfect as a group of 4 year olds can get!  Today we practiced our graduation songs in the church sanctuary up on the stage.  My class did great!  I was super proud of them – and I know they’ll do even better for our actual performance next Wednesday!  We have one more practice on Tuesday.  The other teachers complimented us on using our nice singing voices and not screaming.  They also said that they we very well behaved and knew their songs well.  It was very nice to hear!  We have been learning our songs slowly over the course of a month and the children are excited to be so close to performing them for their parents!

Back in the classroom we made dinosaur skeletons for art.  I cut out a dinosaur shape and then laid out 3 different pastas for them to glue on as dinosaur bones.  All the children really enjoyed this project – and some actually came out looking like skeletons!  I had a few pictures out on the art table of dinosaur skeletons for inspiration – the children thought that was really cool – and I actually had 4 or 5 ask me why I didn’t buy real bones at the store instead of noodles!  I thought that comment was adorable!    Maybe next time kids…

picnic day!

Today we had our End of the Year Picnic!  This is basically our class and one other class (the 3 year old class where my students for next year come from) gathering out on the grass on blankets and eating sack lunches.  It’s extremely simple – yet something I look forward to each year!  The other teacher and I got together a couple years ago and decided to make this a tradition!  We invite the parents to join us – my class had 4 parents come and the other class had about 6 parents come.  We thought this was a good turn out seeing as we only gave them a week’s notice!    After our lunch we let the children run around and play on the grass – a rare, but intensely enjoyed treat!

Before the picnic my class got to enjoy another fun tradition I always do at the end of the year – confetti!  I love confetti – and so do the children!  What I do is cut up construction paper into small confetti size squares – enough so that each child can have two handfuls.  After each child has taken their two handfuls we do a countdown and the children get to throw it up in the air!  Then they gather up some more off the floor and continue throwing it up all while laughing, giggling, shrieking, clapping, and jumping from excitement!  Every year the children get a kick out of doing this and every year I get tons of joy out of watching them!  This will keep their attention for quite some time – it’s really amazing!  Of course, this all takes place inside our classroom and at the end of it all the children get to pick up all the little pieces of confetti scattered across the floor – and I’ve never had a child complain about doing this (maybe it’s because I warn them before if they want to have all the fun they have to help clean up the mess).

It was a fun-filled, joyful day.  Next Wednesday we will have our graduation and sing our songs to the parents.  Then school will be officially “out” for the summer.  We don’t get summers off – we are open year round and most of my children should still attend at least part time so I will still see them – but I will miss the ones who leave and I wish them the best.

mommy dearest

So far this week we’ve been trying to finish up our Mother’s Day gifts.  We had the children paint small wooden hearts and larger wooden rectangles.  Each was painted in a different color and I hot glued the hearts to the center of the rectangle.  At the top we stamped “Happy Mother’s Day” and I wrote the child’s name in the heart.  They really did turn out very cute!  I attached a magnet to the back and we’ve been working on wrapping them in tissue paper this week – only 4 more to go!

We’ve also been reading books about moms in class.  We read “Just Me and My Mom” (we are fond of the Little Critter series in my class) and this morning we read “Love You Forever“  – one of my personal favorites!  The children really enjoyed this book – I was glad!  We talked about all they ways our moms show us they love us.  Then we talked about all the ways we can show mom how we love her – it was a good discussion!

After our discussion we practiced our graduation songs – and after only 3 days of practice – they almost have the first song down!  I was sooo proud of them!  They’re quick learners!  It helps that they really love both songs!    Overall, a great day…

I almost forgot:  HAPPY TEACHER APPRECIATION WEEK!!!   I hope all of you teachers out there have a great one!  Mine was made better this afternoon when a mother gave both of us flowers….how sweet!