End of the School Year

Today was our last day of school! Emmie and Ellie had such WONDERFUL years and we are so thankful for their sweet teachers and sweet friends that helped make it so great.

Evelyn is an honorary Edwards kid :)

Emmie's friend Abby is moving to Okinawa this summer. Abby broke my heart wiping away her tears to take this picture. We'll miss her!

Emmie got the teacher that she had been dead set on having AND her best friend, Evelyn, was in the same class. She also had a little boy from her class last year that was in her class again this year. Poor guy. Within the first few days of school last year she made him her "project" and she was thrilled to have him in her class again. I guess they figured he needed to be with his "mother"!

Our tradition...a "bench" picture with Evelyn and Emmie at the beginning and end of the school year...August 2016

May 2017...these sweet girls have grown up so much!

This year Emmie grew even more as a reader. I'm constantly amazed at what a great reader she is! She struggled some in math but I'm so proud of how hard she worked on her math assignments and I loved seeing her big smile when she figured it out! She started doing spelling tests and reading comprehension tests (they were graded but didn't count for anything). I'm proud of how determined she was to make 100 on her tests and I loved celebrating when she FINALLY went from a 90 to a 100 on the comprehension...she was so determined!

Emmie's teacher was just amazing. We had such a great year with her. AND...the BEST part...she's looping to second grade! We're beyond excited. (As an FYI, looping is when a teacher follows her class to the next grade. She'll have many of the same kids with some new ones added in as they had a few that moved at the end of the school year.) As a parent I love that we will start second grade already knowing our teacher very well and knowing how she operates. It's also nice to know, roughly, which friends will be in the class.

Emmie LOVES her teacher!

Ellie had a different teacher than Emmie did in kindergarten. She absolutely loved her teacher and the aide in the room. Ellie is sure that her teacher is the smartest teacher ever. She was always coming home telling us some interesting fact that her teacher told her about whatever their unit of study was that week. She would tell us all the time how smart her teacher was.
I am so proud of all that Ellie accomplished this year. She learned to read, has excelled in math, and LOVES to write! Her teacher told me that Ellie always goes above and beyond on any assignment. For instance, the kids will be told to write a sentence about their picture and Ellie will write a story. This was the child that a year and half ago we could barely get to write her name. I'm SO proud of her! Ellie is very excited about heading to 1st grade and we can't wait to watch her grow even more!

Ellie and her teacher. The other teacher was out sick this day so I wasn't able to get a picture of Ellie with her.