It's been an interesting last few days around these parts. Last week at Henry's school they had a "coffee house" to celebrate the end of school. The students all sang a few songs, including This Land is Your Land. The hat photo is from some other song where they all traded hats and I thought about how my co-teacher would have been having a fit about lice. I think Henry wears a cowboy hat pretty well, though!
They also each wrote something about a buddy in the class and got up to read it.
Here's the acrostic poem Henry's buddy wrote about him.
They shared a few of the special things they'd been working on all year. Henry was pretty proud of this US scrapbook from their recent social studies unit. There may also have been an incident in which I spilled hot coffee on Henry's hand while he reached across for a donut. At least it was my own kid I did it to...
At the beginning of this week, while it was field day at my own school, Henry's class was having an end-of-year picnic. I was able to run over for a little bit and got this cute picture of him with some of his pals.
Monday night I came down with a stomach bug and ended up too sick to go to school Tuesday morning. This was bad news all around, as the 2nd grade team had been planning a staff shower for me that day, my class was planning a 'surprise' shower for me that day, and my co-teacher and I had lots of packing to do- since neither of us will be using that classroom next year. I did not particularly enjoy staying home, as I spent much of the day throwing up or just moaning on the couch, but more than anything I felt guilty about not being at school.
Fortunately, my colleagues are amazing. They rescheduled the shower for yesterday- our last full day of school. I didn't feel great, was pretty exhausted, but I knew I had to be at school. All of the 2nd graders had written advice to Henry and Clara to decorate the tables for the shower. Here are a couple of my favorites:
"Henry, never upset the baby, she or he will cry and cray and cry. Trust me. I am the oldest in my family. My two sisters have bin bugging me sins I was born."
And this one from a student in another class who came into the school year speaking no English at all: "Dear Henry You are help new baby. So I think you are play with baby. And baby are very happy!"
The mom who was organizing the kid party rescheduled too. Here are the monkeys in my class. I wonder if they were wearing pink and blue on purpose, now that I look...?
There were these adorable cupcakes. They also had ice cream cups and pickles- which some of the kids actually tried together! They played that game where they had to cut a piece of ribbon to the circumference of my belly and each child decorated a onesie for the baby! It was very sweet.
And then we come to today...our last day of school! It was an extra day for Clara at Poko Loko this week, but we needed her to be able to be somewhere. Henry and I left early. He didn't have kidcare today, so he came to help me at school for a bit- then I drove him over to his school and still managed to get back in time for my students to come in.
Clara wanted to wear her fancy dress for her last day. Here she is outside the place we've given lots of money to over the last 5 or 6 years. She is holding Ellie (of course) and some cards she made for her teachers. She was also excited to take in some Munchkins to share. ("Mom- I got to have two! I had one with sprinkles and one with powder.")
Henry and I each had a half day of school. Pete took time off work to pick Henry up and then they celebrated with lunch at Beinlich's. They rounded out the day with some basketball in the driveway while I drove myself crazy trying to get to the Target that actually had a maternity swimsuit left in my size.
Summer officially starts tomorrow! I think we'll kick it off with a trip to the library to sign up for the summer reading program. And I'm hoping for a trip to the beach this weekend!
