Sydney finished kindergarten!

Sydney on her last day of school - no uniforms that day!

Sydney finished kindergarten on Thursday of last week.  She really had a great year at St. Mary Magdalene, and we are so fortunate to be able to send her to such a wonderful school.  She loved her teachers and made some good friends.  With only two classes per grade, she’ll be sure to have some familiar faces in her first grade class next year.  Sydney was so sad to have her kindergarten year come to an end.  She cried for her last day of school, and I know she’ll miss her teachers and friends this summer.  

There were so many great things about St. Mary Magdalene, but one little thing in particular illustrates the type of environment she was in this year: every morning (every single morning), Sydney’s teacher assistant Mrs. Bishop would greet her as she walked in the room by saying, “Good morning, Sydney.  You are a gift from God.”  I loved this way of starting the day.  Imagine if all children were uplifted like that on a daily basis at school.  In fact, I remember when she was in public school it used to really annoy me how she was ignored or greeted in a harsh manner by her assistant when she walked in the room.  No eye contact, no smile, not using Sydney’s name.  That really bothered me.

As for the academics, Sydney learned SO much this year!  Before starting school, she could read simple books and now she can read just about any book you hand her (and will if you let her).  She could write all the letters back in August, although her penmanship was not great and most of her letters were written upper case.  She could spell a few simple words like “I,” “love,” “was,” and so on.  I scanned two samples of her writing from this year because the difference is so amazing.  Both were written independently with no spelling help (obviously!).  The first is from her first few weeks of school back in August and the last is something she wrote this weekend.  She LOVES to write and is enthusiastically embracing the idea of keeping a daily summer journal.

Funny true story!  Translation: "It was my nap time.  I saw a spider.  It was under my bean bag.  I told my mom.  My mom she killed the spider."  Yay, for mom the superhero!

This is Sydney's journal entry about her sleep over this weekend with Aunt Zia and Uncle Thomas.  Love the liberal use of exclamations and question marks!

We are looking forward to a fun summer at home with the new baby.  I have lots of little activities planned for Sydney and Pierce and we will hit the pool as often as we can.  I think she’ll be glad to be on summer vacation and will soon forget about missing all the fun in kindergarten.  I know mommy is THRILLED not to be making school lunches any more and to have a break from the driving and paperwork involved in school!  Yay for summer break!