May 18, 2009 Kindergarten Visitation Day

Even though, Gabrielle's Young 5's class was considered a Kindergarten class in many ways (like field trips, etc) she will actually go to Kindergarten next year. Ravenna has an All Day Every Day Kindergarten program that was part of our decision to send her to Young 5's this year.

Each year, the school cancels class for the current Kindergarteners for a day - and next year's Kindergarteners visit their class rooms. It gives the kids a chance to see the class rooms and meet the teachers, interact with other kids and they do some activities that help the teachers assess the children's readiness for Kindergarten and make recommendations to parents if needed.

Cutting out and coloring an elephant after reading a book about the elephant with Mrs. DeBoer.

Musical numbers in Mrs. Oleson's class

Playing a name game and a shape game with Ms. Doane

May 21, 2009 - Young 5's Class Picnic

Gabrielle's class had their class picnic on a beautiful day. I had a meeting at work that evening and needed a babysitter for a few hours in the afternoon, as well as help setting up a garage sale that afternoon, so.... Grandma happy obliged to help with the babysitting and garage sale and since she was already heading out to Ravenna, she was able to join us for Gabrielle's fun day.

Gabrielle and her friend Emily having lunch

Sam and Allison thought they were pretty cool getting t have lunch with the big kids too.

One of the parents arranged for each of the kids to make a Creative Memories scrapbook page for Mrs. Carroll, their teacher. She then bound the pages into a book and they gave it to her at the picnic. They had a starter sentence on each page that the kids finished including memories they had of their school year and of their teacher. It turned out really cute and Mrs. Carroll loved her gift.

Mrs. Wagner has a double role. She not only volunteers in the library at school and did their story time each week - but she is also the grandmother of one of Gabrielle's classmates. She gladly joined the celebration and brought a few books about picnics to read to the kids on the lawn.

Sam and Allison did not want story time to end. They didn't want to leave - so Mrs. Wagner happily reached into her bag and read the 2 of them another book.