School Days

Claire has had lots of fun activities leading up to the end of the school year. She started off with water day. The kids wore their bathing suits to school, then spent the entire morning outside playing. The best part, though, was when the wonderful room mom brought everybody Happy Meals!

A Mother's Day celebration was next up. All the mommies were treated to a yummy breakfast, then were serenaded with a lovely performance of "I Love Mommy". It was so cute! We also received hand-painted flower pots. Mine looks perfect sitting in my kitchen window!
In order to let the dad's feel loved, they had a pre-Father's Day breakfast the next week. No pictures of that, but Jason said it was pretty awkward with the dads just standing around silently. No surprise, really. Claire made him an awesome painting that he has hanging in his office. It's so good I'm thinking about getting some big canvases and letting her at it--we still need wall hangings for her room.

And thanks to a HORRIBLE, wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-wailing ear infection, Claire almost missed her last day of school. Thank goodness for effective antibiotics, because not even 24 hours after the first dose, she was back to her normal self. She was a bit deaf, but healthy enough to participate in the last day party. We all ate pizza, then one of the parents surprised the kids with a monkey cake (they were The Monkey Class this year). There was lots of playing with friends and hugging good bye. (And a word of caution, Nathan--you might have a competitor named Christian.....)

Claire brought home a little portfolio she's been working on all year. It's pretty amazing to see her growth--both in academics and physically. She's learned to write a few words and read and sound out some others. And she's sprouted! She grew 3 INCHES since September! (But, lucky thing, only 1 pound.) Look at this page from her book:
Amazing!

Claire has had such a wonderful experience with school this year and is already asking when she can go back to "the new class by the playground". Luckily we have lots of fun summer plans to keep us all busy!