Last Day of School!

I’m still not sure how it happened, but Piper’s first year of preschool is OVER!  Last summer before school started, I couldn’t imagine putting Piper in school four days a week, three hours a day.  She had an awfully hard start to the school year, but gradually settled in to her place in the classroom.

She made friends.  She learned a lot.  She gained loads of confidence.  It’s been difficult watching her struggle when it’s been hard, but it’s been so awesome to see her thrive when she succeeds. 

Her last day was a busy one- a performance of a song they were learning in music class (The Green Jelly Bean Song, in case you’re wondering, is one of her favorites right now), graduation for the kids moving on to kindergarten (only three of the sixteen kids will be in class with her again next year), lots and lots of snacks, and then, the culmination of it all, Field Day!

They did all kinds of games with the kindergartners (how fortunate for the kids that their field day was on a day that was slightly cool- the big kids had theirs on the first HOT day of the season!)  I thoroughly enjoyed watching Piper with her friends, even though things were very different and she wasn’t entirely sure what was going on (read: we did a lot of chasing…)

She rocked the races- kept up with the pack just fine, thankyouverymuch (that’s her in the green shirt at the bottom.)  The only one she had a little difficulty with was the hopping one.  She didn’t get out of the start blocks until a second late, so she wanted to catch up to the other kids.  So she ran.  And then realized that she was supposed to be jumping.  So she jumped.  Only problem was that she wasn’t going anywhere.  She was jumping in place.  So she ran.  Which lead to more in-place jumping…  You get the picture.  It was pretty hilarious, actually- and she didn’t mind.  In fact, she was pretty proud of herself when she crossed the finish line!

After a bit of time outdoors, they went in to the gym to swing on the ropes and play on the scooter boards.  If you had told me last year that this would happen this year, I would have called you crazy!  That’s her teacher behind her- took three people to get her on it since it was so high off the ground, but…

…she did it!

And the scooters?  Definitely a big hit!  She was pretty quick on those boards!

Even Addy got in on the fun!

…and me <<ahem>>

We ended the day doing freeze tag in the field.  Which is a rather unfair game to play when you’re the shortest one out there- no one could run through her legs to “unfreeze” her!  So, she resorted to being the group unfreezer- She had no problems with that part!  She thought it was pretty hilarious, too.  Until she tried to go under Addy’s legs. 

It didn’t go over well.

Popsicles provided a nice segue from all the games into goodbyes to all of her friends.  And teachers.  <<sniff sniff>>

What a big year it’s been- can’t wait to see what she learns next year!  Let’s just hope it comes with fewer days spent in the hospital, shall we???