The End to an Amazing School Year.

I SWEAR it was just yesterday that I was posting about the first day of school, and now I'm posting about the last!!!

I was looking at Addison's first day of school pictures and I couldn't believe how much she has grown!  It made me a little sad.  As I was taking her picture today, she seriously felt so grown up!  I wondered how my first grader...well...technically not first grader any more...but still...could seem so old!



And then she started giggling and gave herself bunny ears.
 

Whew, at least she's not completely grown up. :)

We had a late start day today...but that doesn't stop the girls from getting up at their regular time, so we had a lot of time to kill before school started.  Addison took her sisters on a little adventure on the wall separating the neighbor and our yards. 
 

I seriously love this little lady.  She's not even close to a tween yet, but it still feels like she has one foot in the grown up world and one in the kid's world.  She is so mature and responsible in someways, and so innocent and child like, and carefree in others.

Finally we headed off to school. 

The last day was really bittersweet.   You know those amazing, life-changing teachers you always hear about on television?  Well Addison had one of those this year.

Mrs. Boles is SO amazing.  You can tell that she absolutely loves teaching, and loves her students. And her students SERIOUSLY love her! 

I knew there was something special about her when I went in for Addison's VIP day about two weeks after school had started.  For part of her VIP day, I read the kids Addison's favorite book.  I sat down to read, and all of the children sat COMPLETELY quiet in their spots on the rug, their attention TOTALLY on me.  And these kids were just barely out of kindergarten!  That was when I had my first inkling that Mrs. Boles was something special, and the rest of the year just confirmed my suspicions.

Addison was always excited to go to school, and loved telling me what they were doing in their class.  I knew every single day Mrs. Boles was absent because Addison came home so sad that she wasn't at school and excitedly anticipated her return.


She made school so much fun for Addison.  I was hoping that all of my kids would wind up having her!  Unfortunately not too long ago we found out she would be moving to Idaho once the school year was over!  We are happy that she and her husband get to retire, but we are also SO sad to see her go!

I came to school a little bit before the last bell rang so I could make sure to get a picture of Addison and her teacher.  The bell rang, and all of the students just ran to Mrs. Boles and gave her this huge group hug!  It was seriously one of the sweetest things I've ever seen!  It was the perfect end to an amazing year (and career)! :)

Student Led Parent Teacher Conferences

Did you ever have back to school night?  Do you remember how incredibly excited you were whenever back to school night rolled around?  Your WHOLE family got to come to your school and see what you were doing.  I can't be the only one out there who felt this way as a kid.  Back to School Nights were  seriously the highlight of my elementary school years.  I STILL remember (with fondness bordering on giddiness) guiding my parents around my classroom, showing them all the cool stuff I was working on, and just beaming with pride as my teacher told my parents what a great student I was.

Well, around here they call them Student-Led Parent Teacher Conferences, but it's still just as exciting.  Addison got to show us all sorts of stuff she was working on.



The night of parent teacher conference, which also happened to be the 100th day of school, Addison's teacher had the students write 100 words.  If they completed all 100 words, their paper got cut into these curly cues and hung from the ceiling.

The kids have been learning about volcanoes, and got to "make" one in class. 



The highlight of the evening was watching it erupt.

I missed the first eruption and asked Addison to put in some more baking soda.  Addison looked questioningly at her teacher who gave her the go ahead (apparently they were only supposed to do it one time).  As Bart was helping her put the funnel in, part of the volcano broke off.  I gasped and held my breath waiting for Addison to start crying (she does that from time to time when something she's worked hard on breaks...and she had been telling me about this volcano for days), but she didn't, she just once again looked at her teacher, who said, "Don't worry, that's fine, it's just the demo one."  Then she was fine.  I was pretty impressed, I thought for sure there would be tears.

It wasn't until I asked if Addison needed to get her volcano from the bucket to take home that I realized, it wasn't her volcano that broke at all, it was the Demo volcano for everyone to use!  The lack of tears made sense, but I felt even worse!   We had broken the volcano everyone else would be using that night. Oops!

Fortunately Addison's teacher really didn't mind.  She is such a wonderful teacher, I'm so glad Addison is in her class.



Before we left Addison's teacher asked her what the molten rock was called when it was inside the volcano.
Addison excitedly replied, "Magma!"

"And what is it called outside of the volcano?"
 
"Lava"

And with that Addison earned the right to take home her own "Lava" so that she could make her volcano erupt at home.

More on that in the next blog post...

First Day of School

I have to say, the first day of first grade was actually pretty rough for us.  I had warned Addison that this year she would have to get up earlier because school started at 8:00 instead of 9:15.  Always the dutiful daughter, she got up without complaining, put on the outfit she had carefully laid out the night before, made her bed, did her chores, ate, did her hair, brushed her teeth, and was completely ready to go by 7:30.

The only problem was that the school decided to have a P.M. common day for the first day of school, which meant school started at 9:15.
 
The next hour was filled with so many “Is it time to go yet?”s that I thought we’d try walking to school: an idea everyone was excited about...except Addison. At one point she was so opposed to it she broke down in tears.  I finally caved in and we just waited around until it was time to go.  She was still recovering from her breakdown when we piled into the car, so I was worried that it might taint the rest of her day.



Fortunately, as soon as she saw her friends at school, she got so excited I almost completely forgot it was a rough morning.  The school’s theme this year is, “Be our guest” and teachers were lined up along a red carpet welcoming the students back to school as “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and the Beast played over the sound system.



Her teacher, Mrs. Boles was excited to meet her and while Addison was a little shy at first, she really warmed up once she was sitting at her desk.


P.M. common days end at 3:30 and I think it might have been the longest day of my life.  I kept looking at the clock to see if it was time to get her.  I didn’t realize what an adjustment having Addison gone all day was going to be fore me.  I definitely missed her.  Fortunately, on normal days she’ll get home at 2:15, so I won’t have to wait quite as long.  :)

When Addison got home, she was so excited to tell me all about everything she did (including how she wanted to buy lunch instead of bringing it the next day).  It made all my waiting worth it. 
Addison, I’m so happy you’re so excited about school.  It’s going to be a great year!