Here they are...my over-the-top fabulous group of kinder kids! I had the perfect class this year with the perfect parents who helped me have the perfect year teaching. I have been lamenting the end of this year for weeks and weeks. I've cried on multiple occasions and was sure I'd be a bawling mess on graduation day.....
......but surprisingly I wasn't!! I was pretty busy running the graduation program and hoping it would all work out. I'm not a big fan of kindergarten graduation and took it upon myself to rewrite the whole program this year. We had a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme. All 155 students got a little gift bag with a butterfly lollipop and caterpillar gumdrop candy, and a copy of the DVD that we showed during the program. I tried to spruce up the gym a little bit. I made this caterpillar and butterfly and hot glued them to the wall while standing on a high ladder....all by myself! And I hung a couple of photo backdrops for parents to use. But really, you can only do so much with a big ugly gym and who cares anyways, because everyone is just looking at their own kid. As it should be!
......but surprisingly I wasn't!! I was pretty busy running the graduation program and hoping it would all work out. I'm not a big fan of kindergarten graduation and took it upon myself to rewrite the whole program this year. We had a "Very Hungry Caterpillar" theme. All 155 students got a little gift bag with a butterfly lollipop and caterpillar gumdrop candy, and a copy of the DVD that we showed during the program. I tried to spruce up the gym a little bit. I made this caterpillar and butterfly and hot glued them to the wall while standing on a high ladder....all by myself! And I hung a couple of photo backdrops for parents to use. But really, you can only do so much with a big ugly gym and who cares anyways, because everyone is just looking at their own kid. As it should be!
Our song to go along with the theme was "Butterfly Fly Away". I changed the words to be relevant to kindergarten, and this little girl sang a solo of those first verses. Macie was in my class this year and let's just say she is not shy and not difficult to hear from anywhere in any room. She had the song memorized and did a great job. Then the entire kindergarten joined in for the second half of the song, singing the original version, which fit perfectly......."Caterpillar in the tree, how you wonder who you'll be. Can't go far but you can always dream. Wish you may and wish you might. Don't you worry, hold on tight. I promise you that there will come a day. Butterfly fly away. You've been waiting for this day......" Yep, it was a tear-jerker for many of those parents all sentimental about things like their kinder babies growing up. Parents like me!!
I've still got a week of school left, even though these kinder kids are done. I'll spend the week assessing kids who will be starting kindergarten in August. I'm pretty stubborn about change and don't really want to let this class go quite yet. So I think for another three months they will still be "my class". We'll have a class reunion this summer. And maybe, just maybe by August 20th I'll be ready to "let" the first grade teachers have them, and free up a little space in my teacher-heart for a new group. But I'm pretty sure this group of 24 kids will always occupy a little spot that I carry with me. At a time in my life when I needed it, teaching this group of kids was a joyful tender mercy. Those kinds of things are not easily forgotten.
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