Week 23

Thursday was Punky's last day of kindergarten.  I'll skip all the "this year went so fast" and "I can't believe she is a first grader" stuff and talk about how unbelievable blessed we were this year.

 Punky's teacher, Mrs. Rigazio, was the best teacher I could have imagined for Punky and for us as parents.  She was caring, sweet and yet firm with the kids.  Punky was happy to go to school every single day.  One of the nicest things we heard at her conferences was that every morning, Punky greeted her teacher by name, "Good morning, Mrs. Rigazio!"  (And we heard this from the music teacher, the kindergarten teacher next door, etc. too.)  It is easy to tell Punky was very happy to be at school.  Each week, Mrs. Rigazio emailed 2-3 photos or videos of the kids.  I can't tell you how comforting and reassuring it was to receive those emails so often.  It showed her teacher cared, and reminded us that Punky was having fun, excelling and making friends.  Those emails always brightened our days!  A lot of those photos can be found at this End of the Year Video if anyone cares to look (mostly I just wanted to link it so I don't lose it!)

Here are some of my favorite videos:

Morning Song- I love so much about this video including our neighbor's enthusiastic hand shakes and the two kids just staring at each other- hahaha

Reading Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus- On Fridays, the kids could bring in a book from home and read it to the class.  This was the first time Punky did it and her teacher was so surprised and proud of her.  I didn't have the heart to tell her Punky has probably read this book 1,000 times so she knows it perfectly!

Book Report on Racoons- Punky was part of the GE program this year and at the end of the year, the kids did a book report (complete with note cards to make sentences, sentences to make paragraphs)  Crazy stuff I remember doing in middle school.

Rush Creek was a perfect fit for Punky and our family.  We can't wait for next year!