We made it!!

Lydia and Emily are officially Kindergartners! Their teachers, Ms. Warner and Ms. Wilder, put together an adorable Pre-K end of the year celebration. The students filed in, introduced themselves, sang songs, recited memorized nursery rhymes and accepted their certificate of completion of Pre-K. Afterwards, there was an ice cream social and a special cake for the students. It was such a cute celebration for the kids!! . . . . and the parents!

The "Graduates"

This was such a cute song. They sang the ABC's to a pop tune. They held their guitars and wore their sunglasses while singing. It was so cute!! Lydia and Emily are in the middle row. Emily is all the way to the left and Lydia is behind the little girl in the orange dress.
Emily jammin
Lydia "shades" Washington

Their hats were made in class. They each have their own tassel with 2010 on it. These were made on one of the days my mother was volunteering in their class (my mom and I both volunteer in there. It is so much fun!!) and she helped to make them.
Lydia and Mia reciting their nursery rhyme

Emily

Lydia
The girls and me

Lydia, Oliver and Emily. Oliver is a friend of ours from Freedom Baptist Day School (the center where I work and where they all went from 2 years old until coming to the

Pre-K program at McGaheysville Elementary).

Lydia, Emily and Autumn

Ms. Flanery was a student teacher in the Pre-K class at the beginning of the year and helped out a lot throughout the remainder of the year. She is such a sweet girl and Lydia and Emily love her!!

Ms. Warner is Lydia and Emily's teacher. She is so fantastic!! They have learned more from her than I could have ever thought possible! They absolutely love "Pre-K" (they never refer to school as school. It is always "Pre-K") and I know they will miss her! I only hope their teachers next year are half as wonderful as Ms. Warner!! :)

Ms. Wilder is the Teaching Assistant in the classroom. Ms. Wilder works very hard to help Ms. Warner teach the children. She takes care of prepping all the projects, getting items together for lessons, and just generally being Ms. Warner's "right hand man." They make such a great team! We will miss them all!!!

The movie at the bottom is of Emily, Lilly and Kasey reciting their nursery rhyme.

This was such a super day and a super program!! Each child received a photo album containing pictures of them from throughout the year as well as a cd collection of pictures from the year. What a fantastic experience this program and year has been!!

Ryan's Pre-School Graduation

My mother has said to me that as you are going through certain stages of your child's life and development, each step seems to take forever to get through while you are in it, but when you turn around and look at the time that has passed, it seems like it flew by. It's amazing how mothers can be right sometimes:). Ryan graduated from pre-school Wednesday (5/28/08) night. He is now officially ready for Kindergarten! We can't believe it!! Wasn't he just born yesterday? Boy, I sound like my Grandmother now. Ryan will actually start Kindergarten a week before he turns 5. He will continue at the center for the summer, but the educational portion of pre-school will stop until the fall. Ms. Rabia, Ryan's teacher, (pictured with him) had a super graduation ceremony for her 12 graduating 4-5 year olds. The families were invited to a picnic dinner--everyone brought a dish--at a local park and the kids played after the ceremony. We had a great time!! In addition to his diploma certificate, Ryan received a bag of goodies that he ended up leaving at the park when we left. Lucky for us, Ms. Rabia collected all the abandoned goodie bags and returned them to their rightful owners Thursday morning. We are so proud of Ryan!! Before we know it, we will be packing him up for college.