from the corner of my couch: End of School

Last Day of School - 6/5/20

Friday was our "official" last day of school. What a year it has been! We started the year in Columbia at our school and ended in Greenville doing e-learning. I have loved watching all of my kiddos grow throughout the school year and thought I'd do a little blurb on each of them!

First day of school!

JP - JP went to preschool or the first time this year. He was in the 2 day a week 3 yr old class. He was with our beloved Mrs. Terri who has taught all 4 of the kiddos and he also had the wonderful Mrs. Jodi! He was never 100% sold on the whole school thing and some days were easier than others but he sure did love his teachers and he made some sweet friends in his class. His teacher was great about posting videos during quarantine and some days he would just sit and watch video after video. His favorites were the books she would read out loud. He learned so much in school this year and we are so proud of him!

Mrs. Terri has been there for all of our babies and we're so glad we were able to squeeze JP in for her LAST year of teaching!

JP with Mrs. Jodi...what a fun treat to have her for JP's teacher this year! (Her boys are Ellie's age so we've known her for years!)

End of year picture!

Ruthie - Ruthie was SO nervous to start kindergarten. This sweet girl had major separation anxiety all summer which was something we had never dealt with before with her. However in true Ruthie form I walked her to the door of her classroom the first day and she walked in without even telling me bye and it was smooth sailing from then on out.

Meet the teacher night with Mrs. Crosby and Mrs. Kuhn. We were beyond excited for Ruthie to be in their class this year!

Ruthie had the BEST year in kindergarten. Her teachers were amazing and we just loved them to pieces! Ruthie, like Emmie, likes to have a project. Very early in the year Ruthie found a buddy who needed an extra helping hand and she designated herself as his helper. Also, every time I saw her with her classmates she was dragging some little boy around talking 90 miles an hour, no doubt telling him everything he should/shouldn't be doing. The world better watch out for Ruthie! Ruthie also excelled in the classroom. Her reading is starting to click and she loves math! Ruthie has really missed her teachers and friends but her sweet teachers made a website where they would post videos of them doing things like telling jokes, talking to a local police chief, or doing some dances with the principal and her daughter! Ruthie loved watching those videos so much! They also did a weekly google meet up and she would count down the days every week until Friday when she had her meet. My favorite week was the week each kid got to tell a joke. Kindergarteners telling jokes was great entertainment! We also had a special treat when her teachers came to read a book to us "socially distant style".

We are so thankful for Mrs. Kuhn and Mrs. Crosby and how much they loved our sweet Ruthie!
(Also, a huge shout out to Mrs. Kuhn who had to deal with a very nervous allergy mama at the beginning of the year. Ruthie had just finished OIT and I sent her 2 pages of information about OIT and what to do if Ruthie had signs of a reaction. She sent me an email back that just made me feel like she could handle anything and it sure did make me breathe easier as I sent my baby girl off to kindergarten!)

Ellie - Ellie is my kid that is a bit more "go with the flow". She also LOVES school. However, I know she started this year a bit nervous. Third grade is a big year. You get grades in all the subjects and start standardized testing. Ellie was also in class with very few kids from her 2nd grade class. In addition to these things Emmie had had a pretty (very) rough 3rd grade year and I think that made Ellie more nervous. Ellie's teacher, Mrs. Sharp was so sweet. She was so loving and soft spoken and Ellie thrived in her class. I think Ellie's teacher loves to read as much as Ellie and she really encouraged Ellie's reading. Ellie also really liked the other kids in her class and made quite a few new friends! Ellie excelled in school. I LOVE how much she loves to learn! My favorite is when she sits at the dinner table and tells us random facts that she has learned. She's like a little sponge and it's so fun to watch! Ellie's teacher always read to them from a book and at the beginning of e learning she posted some read alouds and Ellie would get so excited when there was a new one posted. She loved just sitting and watching those over and over. I think Ellie might have been my kid that missed being at school the most. We drove by the school one day on the way home from running errands and Ellie teared up and said "it just feels like home there".

Meet the teacher with Mrs. Sharp. We loved getting to know her this year!

Emmie - What a difference a year makes! As many of you know Emmie's 3rd grade year was pretty awful for all of us, most of the problems stemming from side effects of her medicine. She ended last year begging us not to make her go back to school. This year we started the year with new medicine and lots of prayers. This year she finished the year crying because she couldn't hug her teacher and her friends goodbye! Emmie had an amazing teacher this year. She puts such a focus on emotional health and I always felt like she was so in tune with her students and what was going on in their lives. She totally "got" Emmie and she loved Emmie, and her other students, so well this year. She also gets a big e learning shout out. She started doing daily google meets the first week we were out of school and she did them daily until the very last day of school. I am positive that having that little bit of "normal" made a world of difference in Emmie's adjustment to e learning. Emmie looked forward to seeing her friends and Mrs. Harter every single day. She was so diligent about checking in the kids to make sure they were doing ok and I am so thankful for how much she loves her students.

Meet the teacher night with Mrs. Harter. Everyone who heard Emmie had her said how nice Mrs. Harter was and they were so right. This teacher took a kid who had come to dread school and helped turn her back into a kid who once again looked forward to going to school.

She sent Emmie this rock in the mail today and I love the note she wrote to go along with it.

I have to give another shout out to Emmie's math tutor, Maggie Inman. She started working with Emmie last summer and then here and there during the school year when Emmie was struggling and she was so wonderful. Emmie loved working with her and would even ask to go see her if she was struggling with a math concept. Maggie saved both Emmie AND me many, many tears this year! Also, she helped so much in building back up Emmie's confidence in math. I am so proud of Emmie for being willing to do the extra work in math AND was so happy for her when she could see the payoff of all the hard work!

We have loved our school so much and we sure were sad to say goodbye to Bookman Road! I toured many schools before Emmie started Kindergarten and Bookman was the second school I toured. I left the school and knew that it was such a great fit for us. I looked at other schools that were also good schools and would have been excellent choices but Bookman just felt right from the minute I walked through the doors! We had some amazing teachers over the past 5 years who have loved on all of our kids and nurtured their hearts and their minds equally. I am thankful for everyone at the school who made us feel like family from day 1 and all the teachers, staff, and administration will always have a special place in my heart!

**We did manage to take our bench picture with Evelyn before we moved!