Kindergarten Wrap-Up

As expected, this has been a huge year for our Sammie girl. On June 18th, she finished up her first year of school. Here are the highlights.

Here she is on the way to school on the first day. Yes, it's dark outside. It was around 7:15am. They start so early here- 7:50!



Here she is checking out where the bus drops off, just in case she decided to ride the bus the next day.

(I decided not to have her ride the bus after realizing that driving her would give us an extra half hour of sleep in the morning. She begged me to ride the bus until April when I finally let her, because we had no car and no other option. She rode it for about a month, when she decided she didn't like it anymore and so then I drove her again. Who knows what will happen next year?)



Doing her first homework assignment- a poster all about her. I knew I was saving those magazines for something.



This was her first nine weeks awards assembly. She got the citizenship award for her class. It happened to be the day of their Thanksgiving feast, hence the pilgrim hat.



No, this wasn't her birthday. It was Willy's. Willy is her Webkins whale, who might as well be part of the family. I happened to get a great deal on a carrot cake at the store, so we had a little party. Sammie has always been our imaginative one, so this kind of thing is right up her alley. It was pretty cute.



Pre hair cut. Dancing with Daddy.



Post hair cut. (It was MUCH shorter than we were expecting, but she was able to donate it to Locks of Love which is cool. We also think it makes her seem SO much more grown up, don't you think?)



She decided to try soccer this spring, so we gave it a go. Let's just say, we're gonna try another sport next. This was a pretty typical face on our Sammie girl the whole season. It didn't help that neither James nor I are soccer players and had we made more of an effort to teach her about the game, she probably would have had more fun. Live and learn. (You should see her bump a volleyball, though.)



The playground next to the soccer field was more her style.



Sammie had been begging me all year to be a chaperone on one of her field trips, but because of James' work schedule, I wasn't able to until her field trip this spring to the zoo. Here we are riding the bus together.



It started out great, until one of my kids took off and I had to run around the zoo trying to find him. Then, a peacock jumped out onto the sidewalk in front of Sammie while we were searching and totally freaked her out. I had just finished explaining to her that she had no reason to be nervous because all of the animals were in their cages/homes behind fences and bars. The kids in my group had to be divvied out to other groups and I ended up carrying Sammie around the zoo all day on my back. Not such a fun day at the time, but sure makes for a great memory.



She turned 6! I still can't believe that we have a 6 year old. I don't know why I can't find a picture, but just a couple of days before her birthday, her first tooth fell out. She wanted to keep it, so I told Sammie that if she wrote a note to the tooth fairy, she would probably be okay with that, and let her keep it but still leave a surprise. She did, and it worked. Although, now that's she's 6, she's "too grown up" and doesn't care about keeping it anymore, so we can throw it out.



Braggy posts bug everybody, so I hesitate to put this in here, but I'm just so proud of our little Sammie. Her school had an end of the year assembly where Sammie won the Accelerated Reader award for the whole Kindergarten. She had to read specific library books this year and then when she was done, she would take a quiz on them to earn points that could then be redeemed for treats and other things. Well, she had 4 times more points this year than any other kindergartner. James and I had no idea.

She pretty much taught herself how to read and really enjoys it. I especially love that she and Lexie can snuggle together and read books at night. I know that she has many cousins that are great readers, so does anybody have any ideas for a good book series that she might get into. She's just about finished with the Junie B. Jones books and really likes them, but I'm not sure what to try next 'cause I want to keep her excited about reading.





One last picture with her beloved Kindergarten teacher.



I have to admit, it was hard to be away from her for 6 hours a day, so I'm really glad to have her home. Not only will I get to hopefully sleep in every once in a while, but she also will have a lot more time with James which is awesome.

Well, I don't know who has learned more this year, Sammie, or James and I, but it has been a fun one. I know that life will just be a whirlwind from this point on with more soccer games, birthday parties, field trips, mean substitute teachers, friend drama, annoying fundraisers, etc. and before we know it, they'll all be grown. As hard as it is, I just have to remember to slow down and enjoy the little moments before they're gone.