Teacher Presents & Student Presents

The week before Graduation, it was very busy running errands and get things done! Me not being as fit and being able to go places and take care of everything like normal, made it difficult to say the least!

One thing that we absolutely had to take care of was to get flowers for the teachers. Here it's not that common like in Sweden for instance, that all the parents collect money for a present or flowers from the whole class. Here some parents give something, some don't. 

We don't have the typical flower stores around here, so it was a task to try to find a place where they actually sold cut flowers and not just planted pots.  We didn't want to buy any planters, as their teacher is moving, and cut flowers would be much more practical instead of a pot. Chris was home earlier one night, so after dinner he and I went out to hunt some flowers down. We went to a Japanese mall area, and there in a corner, they sold flowers. I was looking around, they had all kind of different already put together flowers, but nothing that I liked. Then, we realized that she had a cooler room in the back hidden, and there she had cut flowers in the buckets and we could pick and choose what we wanted.

I found pink lilies and peonies and they smelled wonderful and they were big and beautiful. I asked her to bind together two different bouquets with them, and we added ribbons and a thank you balloon. Perfect for our Kindergarten teachers.

So pretty!

Cassandra had seven teachers that she wanted to give a flower and thank you card to, and I thought a single rose packed up in plastic would be the best bet, easiest to bring for her to school, not too big to keep in her looker, and not "too much" for each and every one.

She wrote personal thank you cards to all her teachers to put into the plastic for each rose.

She gave them out after each class on the day before graduation, which worked out perfect as not all teachers made it to the Sayonara Breakfast Graduation on the Thursday.

Isabella unfortunately came down with fever the night to Wednesday, which was really not the best timing! She had to stay home, and Ben went to school. I still had to take her with me to bring the flowers to the teachers when we picked Ben up from school, as we weren't going to be able to see the teachers on Thursday, the very last day as we were going to Cassandra's 8th Grade Graduation on a different base. It was nice being able to thank the teachers, they loved the flowers and the kids got little summer goodie bags from the teacher to take home.

Ben with his goodie bag, with his hand print!

Each child in the class earned different awards, like great helper, good team player etc. Benjamin was very proud to earn the "Amazing Artist" award!! He's a great artist, his pictures are always very detailed and mature, he is patient when coloring in pictures, he fills out the paper with settings and extra background. A very well earned award!!

Goodie bag was filled with three books, pencils, play doh and funny glasses. The best book was "The night before First Grade" which we for sure will read this summer!!

Bella with her goodie bag with her hand print.

Isabella earned the "Wonderful Writer" award!!! Great job baby girl!

Isabella with her "goodies". Such a nice surprise from the teacher!

1. "Bechtel Elementary School"

2. "Party Rock"

3. "It's Our Celebration Day"

4. "Dynamite"

5. ""It Seems Like Only Yesterday"

6. "First Grade Teachers Here We Come"

7. "Ready To Go"

Kindergarten Graduation

Last Tuesday, one week ago, it was time for the performance and the Graduation of Kindergarten. I so had looked forward to this and even if I was still hurting, I made it to drive there, as I was off the heavy painkillers. Chris had thought that he would be able to come, but as it always is in his job, something came up and he wasn't able to after all. 

Isabella just before starting singing, when she realized that daddy wasn't there...poor thing! 

All the seven Kindergarten classes were in the gym next to each other and they all had practiced seven different songs that they were performing. It wasn't the sweet traditional last day of school songs, that one might think about or compare to the ones we used to sing in Sweden when I was a child. These that they sang were much more fun, a lot of pop songs with changed texts. It was absolutely awesome! I filmed them to be able to save and to show Chris and Cassie, and I have to download them differently to be able to share them here, so that will take a minute. But I can at least share the pictures from that day.

These pictures are after the performance, waiting for the Principal to finish up talking.

The Principal.

Getting ready to walk back to the classroom.

After the performance, it was gathering and cake to celebrate in the classroom with the teacher and the parents. All kids were called up to get their award.

My beautiful son - ready for 1. Grade!!

My beautiful daughter - ready for 1. Grade!!

Benjamin has successfully finished Kindergarten!!

Isabella has successfully finished Kindergarten!!

Waiting for Mrs. H to pass out the cupcakes!

 Best friends!

Ben and Bella with their Kindergarten Teacher Mrs. Hayden

Ben and Bella with their Kindergarten Aids, Ms. Plotz to the left, 

and Mrs. Johnson to the right.

Mrs. Johnson  was their aid until April when she finished. The kids loved her, she was absolutely great with them, and it was great that she paid them a visit to see them perform, she is going back to the US this week.

The video clips will be posted shortly. Please check them out from number 1-7 in the order their performance was held. As much as I was smiling and rocking out to some of the songs, I was absolutely tearing up to see my little ones sing "Ready to go" as the last song. They sure are ready to go onto first Grade. I'm so proud of all their accomplishments, all homework that they have completed, all books that they have read, all math they mastered, all the Spanish and Japanese that they have learned. They learned so much in Kindergarten, and hopefully they will be able to continue their love of learning throughout their school years! There are still a lot of years left!!

Birthday Celebration In Class

May 17, was a very special day here in our house. Benjamin and Isabella were turning 6 years old and they had been waiting for this day a long time!! Early morning, there wasn't much celebration, Chris left to work already shortly after 4am and Cassandra was out of the house normal time shortly after 6am, so it was too early to wake any birthday kids up at that time.

We had already told them that we were going to celebrate at night, and that they were getting their presents then, so they were not expecting that in the morning. They were excited going off to school, and they had picked outfits, well Isabella had picked out her outfit, very carefully the night before to look good for her birthday. Ben is still not too worried about what to wear, and will mostly be happy with what I put out for him to wear. Isabella, well that's a whole different story..

This is how cute they were before we were walking off to the bus stop in the morning.

As it normally is here in the schools, the kids can bring something to share with the class if they want for their birthday. Not needed, but ofcourse we wanted to let them feel special here, and be celebrated a bit extra that day.

I went to school around 1pm when they were out of the class room on their special for the day, which was Spanish, and I was able to set everything up in the classroom. I had bought cupcakes and the little plastic rings extra, and decorated them in the classroom. And, as we have one boy and one girl, they both need to feel special, so yes, they each had their set of cupcakes with ring to share with their friends.

Chocolate cupcake with Spiderman ring to celebrate Ben and vanilla cupcake with Frozen ring to celebrate Isabella -  just like they had wished for!

 My birthday girl!!

 My birthday boy!

Everyone was singing Happy birthday two times, and then they were allowed to start eating!! While they were eating, the teacher put on a movie, and after the cupcakes, the kids went on the carpet to watch a little story, while I helped the teachers to clean up. 20 kids eating cupcakes, can be a little messy...

When tables were cleaned off, it was time for the kids to start their math centers. They were working on addition with little cards and had a good time doing it! Learning while playing is the way to do it when they are this young! They both worked well on their centers, and I was happy to see what they were doing.

Ben was working on addition and subtraction and had to write the correct answer under the right column. Different things in one work sheet to keep track of, but he did all of them correctly!! Well done Ben!!

 Counting on fingers is allowed!!

After the math, I had to get home and wrap a few things that I didn't have ready, to have it done when they came home from the bus. The celebration had to wait a few hours until daddy finally came home, but then it was on with dinner, cupcakes and presents!