Last Day of Kindergarten

We started off the last day of Kindergarten by eating breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts. We hope to make it a yearly tradition. Hannah even wore a church dress. She begged at different times throughout the year to wear a church dress to school, but with recess and lunch and snacktime I just couldn't let her do it! She was quite happy with her dress on the last day of school.

We took a few pictures before the day started.

Hannah with Sara Rather- her teacher.  She is a wonderful teacher and was the perfect fit for Hannah's first teacher.

Hannah and Landon ( my friend and co-worker Tracey's son). Sadly, Tracey and Landon won't be at Plano next year.  These two have been buddies for the last 3 years. 

Another perk of having Hannah with me - being at her awards ceremony!

Hannah had a wonderful kindergarten year.  She has learned more than I ever thought possible in one school year and is performing right up there with the students that went to curriculum based pre-school. She is a very good reader and impresses me daily by reading longer and more complicated words.  She is also good at math, writing, and theme (science and social studies). The last science unit they studied was planets.   She is fascinated by all things outer space and sounds like a walking encyclopedia when she's talking about the different planets.   She knows their characteristics, order from the sun, and knows the names of extra moons, etc.  
Every student gets an award in each class, so Hannah and I had been talking about which award she might have earned.   She was positive that she would get one for not pulling any sticks all year long.  Well, she was right.  Each class has a boy and girl star student and Hannah was the girl star student.  Mrs. Rather commented that the students that earned this award are always doing the right thing. She also mentioned that even when she tells the students that they can do something out of the ordinary that Hannah looks at her to get extra verification that it's ok.  That's a big improvement from saying that school was dangerous and that she would hate it just a month or so before school started!
Hannah got a reading award for working on the Lexia program.  This is a computer based program that increases in difficulty as the student masters certain skills.   Hannah made it to the early 2nd grade level of this program.   It makes me so happy to know that my girl can read and loves to read!
In math, she received an award for completing all 8 of the kindergarten math skill books and passing 1st grade math skill books 1-4. These books were something separate from the skills they were learning in class. These were at home books to practice.  They had skills such as counting by 5's, naming coins, completing patterns, writing numbers to 100, simple addition and subtraction, geometric shapes, telling time, and identifying simple FRACTIONS!  Yes, fractions! 
She also got an award for being a wonderful writer. Last  summer, there were some letters that Hannah couldn't write very well and she hated practicing her handwriting.  Here we are a year later, and she is able to write complete sentences and paragraphs.  She is pretty good about using capital letters and end marks too.  She loves to write stories and her handwriting is pretty good.
One girl and one boy in each class get an award for each special area. Hannah received awards for Outstanding Guidance student and Outstanding Music student.
We are so proud of her for her academic performance and her behavior this school year.   It's hard to believe that in a few short months she'll be starting 1st grade!