The End is Near

Last week was my student's graduation promotion ceremony. I'm not a fan of graduations for kindergartners but let's just say the parents at my school are very big fans of graduations for kindergartners, so we had one. And luckily, our parents were so committed they did a lot of the planning, organizing, and decorating so all I really had to do was show up with my 25 little munchkins in tow.

It was actually a really nice ceremony! The kids were so excited and adorable in their fancy clothes. They sang "First Grade, First Grade" and then we surprised them with a recording of us teachers dancing to "Uptown Funk". Each class also did the cute black and white pictures with each kid holding a chalkboard with what they want to be when they grow up that we posted in a gallery for parents to see. There were the typical doctors, teachers, and scientists, and then some kids really thought outside of the box and wanted to be things like ninjas. My favorites were: 'riding a horse', 'a first grader', and 'a pirate'. We also had each of the teachers take the same kind of picture, and I have to say their career choices were quite boring. A lot of mommies and boring desk jobs and one who just wanted to be taller. I think mine was the best, I'll post the actual picture later, but I don't want anyone trying to steal my future career.

I made each of my students a dvd with all of the pictures I had taken over the course of the year as a gift. I worked really hard on it and picked good songs that I thought went well with the theme of the whole thing, so I was really excited to give it to them. After graduation and gifts it was time for the parents to take their little graduates home, and for me to make a pillow fort in my classroom and watch netflix for approximately four hours. It was glorious and I think I'm ready to start a campaign for one day a week to be just like that.

Even though we had graduation last week, we still aren't finished with school yet. As of today we still have 13 days left, but many of my students have already left to go back to their home countries for the summer. Yesterday only 14 out of my 25 students showed up and it will probably only get worse as time goes on and Ramadan begins. With so few kids at school my classroom was noticeably more quiet and organized, which was nice. My students also noticed the difference and one special little one took the time to let me know. While coloring with his best friend, he said to me, "this feels like heaven to me Miss D, it's nice" and it really touched my heart that a six year old would even think of comparing something to heaven. Then he added, "when (absent classmate) is here it feels like hell to me". Outta the mouths of babes!