Last Day of School!

Well, we made it.  We officially survived three months of virtual learning with the kids at home full-time as the students and me as their teacher.  I must admit, it is such a relief to have it over.  The thought of having our children home for another 2.5 months does not seem overwhelming at all to me knowing that we do not have to make home schooling a part of it.  Although the first few weeks just dragged by with many bumps in the road, we eventually got into a groove and time really started to pick up by the middle of April.  I am grateful for the lesson plans that the teachers provided and that I did not have to juggle teaching them while juggling a job.  Although I know that the three of them would have learned more during their 6.5 hours at school each day, I am grateful that they did continue to learn a thing or two with me every week at home.  Although so many wonderful things have been cancelled during our summer break, we are going to try to make the most of it.  Between camping and our July and August vacations to Priest Lake, we will still be able to go on a few trips when almost everything else has been cancelled. We will also still be able have play dates with friends, play in the pool in our backyard, and make day trips to Lake Samm as much as we can.  So, hopefully, between all of these activities, I will be able to keep the children busy and happy and enjoying the outdoors as much as possible.

Since it is one of my traditions to take a picture of our children on the front porch on their first and last day of school, I insisted that they all get dressed and go outside for their "last day of school" picture yesterday.  So, here is the group photo I got of the group as Ella's last day as a Kindergartener, Logan's last day as a 2nd grader, and Lia's last day as a 6th grader.  This is the only year that all three children got to go to the same school together and the last year that Lia will ever go to the same public school with a sibling.  Although it still makes me sad that they missed out on three months together at their elementary school, I am just grateful for the time that they did have together at Shaw Road.

And another shot of our kiddos and baby Emmett who has grown so much since their first day of school picture taken back in September.

Since I always planned on taking a picture of the kids together on their last day when I dropped them off at the side gate of their school, I insisted that we all drive down to their school yesterday morning to take the picture anyways.  If I had known back on March 13th that it was really going to be their last day of school, I would have taken the picture then.  But since we all thought that they would be going back to school on April 27th, it never occurred to me to take a picture when I dropped them off on that final morning.  So, this is as good as it gets!

Another shot of the kiddos standing in front of the side gate where I dropped them off morning after morning.  This was Lia's last chance to step onto the grounds of her school as a 6th grader.  She has had such a wonderful experience attending this school for the past seven years of her life that part of my heart is so sad that she is leaving it behind forever.  This growing up thing is for the birds.

And just for fun, the kids agreed to donn their face masks for a final picture.  This is probably what they will really look like when they head back to school in the fall.

A picture I took of the sign posted on the outside of the school gate stating all the current rules of Phase 2 while on school property.

I wanted to include a few other pictures on this last-day-of-school post as we say goodbye to home school and enter summer break full-time.  This picture is of the sticky note schedule that I implemented on the second week of the quarantine.  With the exception of not doing scripture time every evening after dinner due to a movie night or just being too exhausted from the day, we stuck to this schedule faithfully Monday through Friday.  And although the days started to all feel the same, it really helped to keep us on track.

This is a picture of the 3-tier, file organizer that I pulled out the first week of school.  I bought this almost twenty years ago when I was a brand new teacher in California and it basically has not served much of a purpose after I quit teaching full time in 2008.  However, it really became useful during virtual learning as each child used one file shelf for storage of their assignments that they worked on each week.

One of the great blessings of this quarantine was the opportunity Logan had to start reading chapter books by himself for the first time in his life.  Although his teacher just suggested it, I required that Logan read silently every day Monday through Friday for 30 minutes.  He did an amazing job and read 15 books in the Dragon Masters series and 28 books in the Magic Tree House series.  As of this week, he is currently reading the first book in the How to Train Your Dragon series which are much longer and, as a result, taking Logan longer to read than one or two days.  Here is a picture I took of him this week completing his silent reading among a pile of pillows that he and Ella dragged off the couches in the family room.

All three of our children participated in a weekly Zoom meeting with their teacher and classmates.  This week, Logan's teacher asked the students to "dress up" for fun in honor of their last Zoom meeting.  After bribing him with a dollar, Logan agreed to wear his dress shirt, tie, and suit jacket for his online meeting.  He was only one of two boys who wore a tie and he looked super cute Zooming with his dressy top and shorts on while in the living room.

Logan's teacher planned a really neat, farewell activity for the students in his class that none of our kids' other teachers planned.  We were invited to come to the school on Tuesday this week between 10 a.m. and noon to say goodbye to him.  In addition, Mr. Strand gave the students a framed picture of themselves with a personalized message from him, a sand bucket and shovel with some little treats inside, and a packet of summer activities to complete.  This also gave us the chance to give him his end-of-year gift that Logan helped me make.  It was so nice for Logan to have one more chance to see his wonderful teacher in person before his 2nd grade year officially ended.

One of the many disappointments during this quarantine was the cancellation of our town's Spring Fair when Ella would have had the chance to have a piece of her artwork displayed after being chosen by a panel of judges.  This is the first time in our parenting career that one of our children had a piece of art chosen to be put on display at either the state fair in the fall or the spring fair in the spring.  After emailing her teacher, we were able to pick up this artwork (that we had actually never seen) when I picked up all of the items from her school desk last week.

Here is a picture I took of Lia yesterday showing off her President's Education Award that she received for her hard work the past three years of school.  She would have been given this award at an awesome, 6th grade assembly that her school puts on each year, but instead it was passed to her from her teacher through our car window on Wednesday during the 6th grade recognition car parade.