School Year Wrap-up

The school year ended for Ella last Friday, and now she's in "camp" for the summer (same kids and same teachers but there's a summer camp curriculum instead of school year curriculum). They had some fun end of school year activities - a trip to mini-golf, ice cream day, splash pad, and a graduation for the kids who will go to kindergarten in the fall.

Looking back on the end of the school-year:

Happy Grams
Her teachers send home notes called "Happy Grams" every so often, they are really sweet, here are Ella's so far -

3/2012: Welcome to Pre-K 1 Ella! We are so excited to have you join our class. We hope you loved your first week because we sure did :).

4/2012: Today Ella correctly told us all the rules of the roost! Even though she has only been here a few weeks, she can also identify almost all of our friends (puppets)!

4/2012: Ella is so so sweet and such a great lunch helper. She always volunteers and does it with a smile on her face. Thanks for the help Ella!

5/2012: Ella correctly wrote the alphabet. She got all the letters right and in order. Way to go!

5/2012: Ella has done such a great job with her manners! She always says "yes ma'am" and "no ma'am" now! Way to go Ella! (--> this one is kind of funny because we do NOT come from a yes ma'am, no ma'am environment...it's just a cultural difference growing up in the north vs. the south - here on the other hand, they view it as basic manners...so that took some getting used to but she's gotten the hang of it.)

And her teacher's comment on her end-of year "Balanced Learning Assessment" (an 11 page document!): Isela has adjusted well and made friends quickly. She grasps new ideas readily and is maintaining grade-level achievements. She is a joy to teach, a good worker, and a great listener.


First Incident Report
Her first and only incident report so far?
Incident: Ella got a paper cut on her left ring finger. 
Action Taken: Gave her a hug and a band-aid (not needed but she insisted). 
Ha!!

Writings & Drawings
Here are some of my favorite of Ella's masterpieces from the last month of school

Some cute animal pictures

Her "diary of bugs" 

The Mother's Day card she made me -  so beautiful with lots of stars and flowers!

Some animal names - Cat, Frog, Dog, Lion, Tiger, Bear

The concept of division - she started by drawing 4 magnets, then a picture of her and her teacher, then had to figure out how many magnets each of them would get if they were equally divided.  

She wanted to draw a note for Steve when he got home from work one day, so she asked me how to write "Ella loves Daddy" - he's so lucky, if I got this note I'd plate it in gold!!

Ella's picture of our family :)

Lots of letters 

This one is my favorite - she had to draw a picture of something that is safe, and something that is dangerous, and then tell her teacher what she drew. Her 'safe' picture was "I'm at home with my mom and dad" (and the picture is so cute, it's the 3 of us holding hands on top of the house) Her 'dangerous' picture was "I'm running away from my mom and dad." 

 

At our playground after school on the last day of uniforms until the fall!

They have a ton of fun summer camp activities - field trips, splash pad, dress-up days, shows, special projects, all kinds of stuff. The only downside is that I was really used to her wearing uniforms every day and I do miss how easy it was to pick out clothes every morning!


And something really awesome that happened yesterday morning - we were talking about school and how she was excited for their snake show, where they were going to get to see snakes and touch them, and I asked her - "if you could pick right now, to go back to your old school, or stay at your school here, which would you pick?" - and she told me "stay at my new school." - I was so happy to hear that. All I want is for her to feel happy, secure, and well-adjusted and I feel like she is finally really  feeling at home in her new  school. Makes my heart happy :).