My first class has graduated!
Wow! I can't believe that the year is over. I have completed my first year of teaching, and I accomplished that in the Bush! We had 18 Second-Year students (the four-year-old class) graduated tonight and all of them were there. They were so excited.
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| Waiting to go in the gym. |
Our last day of school was a half-day. We asked parents to pick up their kids at 1:00 right after lunch. For gym time we went on a walk and did a large loop. We walked from Head Start to the store, from the store to the big school, from the big school to Head Start. All together we walked almost a mile. We stopped at the big school and did our stretches on the wooden basketball court in front to the school and then the kids wanted to play Duck, Duck, Goose. We played until everyone had a turn, then I lined up the kids for our class picture. By now the kids had put their jackets back on and were ready for lunch.
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Today was our last day of school. We took a long walk on this beautiful day (temperatures in the mid-forties) to the big school where we played Duck. Duck, Goose and took our class picture.
Bottom Row from the Left: Staci, Leandra, Clarence, Seth, Logan, Christine, Matilda
Second Row from Left: Nadine, Chris, Zach, Kobe, Ayden, Kyra, Lennie, Paul
Megan and Flora |
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| Playing Duck, Duck, Goose. Notice that the kids took their coats off. That's how warm 40 degrees feels! |
Earlier in the week I made two big signs announcing our graduation and I had the kids color them. After they were finished a took four helpers (two for each sign) out in the hall to hang them up. One on the door and one on the wall at the end of the hall.
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On Monday the kids colored our signs to announce our graduation.
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| Looking at St. Michael Bay. There are places along the shore where the ice has melted. |
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| There is a duck! |
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| Looking out my window. There is very little snow. We had rain yesterday but the sun has dried the roads so there isn't a lot of mud. |
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| Monday: The pond behind my house. During the winter I walked across that frozen pond to the far corner. |
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| Thursday: The pond has grown. |
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| The pond in front of my house. This pond reaches from our driveway to the front of the City building (where my classroom is). There was a big mound of snow in the middle this morning. |
On Thursday morning three of our parents came to help set up for graduation in the gym. Linda, Tamira, and Charlene. Linda gets credit for putting together the decoration kit (with some help from Mary, Cecelia, Flora, and myself-I put the two giant pencils together). After we ate lunch we took the kids into the gym to do a quick practice run-through of entering and siting down and then leaving and getting ready for our class picture before the kids went home.
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| The background decorations for graduation. Thank you to Linda, Tamira, and Charlene for helping set up. |
I left Head Start at 3pm and walked to the big school to print of the programs I had made. I spent the next 45 minutes printing 60 programs (the printer was being slow). Then I walked home, got ready for graduation, ate dinner and went to Head Start at 5pm. The door was padlocked. I waited for Timmy (the building monitor) to come back and then went back to the school to get the caps and gowns ready. The first kids arrived at 5:30pm. They looked so nice. Some of the kids that wear the same outfit for a week had nice new clothes. The girls were wearing dresses and some of the boys were in shirts and ties. They were so proud of their nice clothes. "Look Teacher! It's new!"
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| Class picture after the ceremony. |
The three year old class (First-Year Class) went out first. We had an opening prayer. They sang
Twinkle, Twinkle Little Start and
The Itsy, Bitsy Spider. Then Alma and Nora gave them their graduation certificates and the kids went to sit with their parents. Around 6:10 we went out. The kids went to the door of the gym and I stood by the pencil. arch. One-by-one I called their names and they walked in the gym, stopped under the arch and then went and sat down in a chair. (All by themselves!)
After all the students sat down I announced that we had skits to share. We had prepared two skits (two groups for each skit): The Three Billy-Goats Gruff (me) and The Three Little Pigs (Flora). On Wednesday I made some cardboard props (we had a lot of cardboard left from the packaging from the decorations) that they kids painted. A house of straw, a house a sticks, a house of bricks and a bridge. I read the story and the kids repeated their lines. I was so proud of Seth. He was the big bad wolf. He had been practicing and he knew his lines. He got up there and really got into the skit. He was blowing the houses down. When he got to the brick house, "he huffed and he puffed and he puffed and he huffed". He bent forward and panted with his tongue out. Everyone laughed and cheered for him. He was great!
