Last day of kindergarten- finally!

The last day of kindergarten was last Wednesday. I felt like Olivia was in school forever and we are loving having her home all day with us! Olivia was super excited for her last day of school, mostly because they got to eat ice cream. She is happy to be able to sleep in now too, although she was always really good about getting up in the morning. Bring on summer!

Olivia had a blast this year in school. She really does love learning and being with her friends. This year her teacher was Ms. Faughender and Olivia had a really good experience with kindergarten because of her teacher. Ms. F (as Olivia would write her name) was super patient with Olivia and helped her to learn all kinds of new things from the parts of a flower to adding and subtracting. Olivia also had a couple months with another teacher, Ms. Abdella, who got Olivia caught up in her reading skills. Olivia wasn't reading when she got into kindergarten and Ms. Abdella would help her each week with sounding out letters and putting them together. Now Olivia can read most Level 1 books and is always asking me how to say words she doesn't know.

Celeste and I made a thank you gift for Ms. Faughender. We got the idea from Family Fun (here is the craft idea) and made some paper flowers to stick into a fern plant. Behind each flower we put a fun little gift card and had the kids write something to Ms. Faughender on a flower. I think Celeste wrote something like "Thanks for helping us grow" on one flower too. Anyway, it was super cute and Rix and Olivia were excited to give it to her. In the above picture they are wearing their "Here comes 1st grade" hats and holding these huge scrapbooks that show how they have progressed through out the year. Ms. Faughender was an awesome teacher. Olivia has a tendency to kind of be in her own little world sometimes and her teacher helped her to focus and express her creativity.

I'm stealing Celeste's idea and writing down some information that should go in her school book but I haven't bought or made one yet, so here is what I'll include when I finally get around to that:

Favorite subject: Recess and art

Least favorite subject: Singing time (what?! Who's daughter is she?!)

When I grow up, I want to be: a ballerina and a mommy

Favorite color: Pink and purple and red and blue and yellow and green.... so I think it's safe to say she likes the rainbow?

Best friends: Rix and Ethan and Alyssa and Levi (for the record, Ethan had a major crush on Olivia and apparently kissed her at one of their t-ball games!)

I can't wait for summer because: I want to play at the beach!

My favorite thing I learned this year: to read

I can't wait for her to be in first grade so she can learn more. She is super excited to stay at Park Lodge, mostly because Nana (my mother) is there as the head secretary. She loved seeing Nana every day before and after school and getting candy from her. If Olivia ever needed anything, Nana was there to make sure she got it. It's so nice to have my mother there at Olivia's school because my kids will always have someone keeping watch over them while I'm not there. Plus, if I was ever running late, my mother would just hold the kids in the office with her. Thanks Mom!