End-of-the-Year Excitement

School finally ended for the summer on Tuesday. With the end of school comes all the excitement of concerts, plays and performances. Here are a few pictures of the kids from some of these recent events.

This is Sarah playing the flute at her band concert. I didn't have too high of expectations from a middle school band, but I must say that I was extremely surprised at the quality of all the performing groups. It was exceptional! Better than most high school groups I have heard. Lots of these kids have taken private lessons for years, so it was wonderful to hear them perform.

Rachel and Sarah both played in a spring piano recital. They worked hard and performed well. They were sad to say goodbye to their teacher for the past two years. Despite a somewhat rocky relationship with her, they have learned so much and improved dramatically over these past couple years.

Here is Ben performing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during his 1st grade celebration. All the first graders sang some songs together and then each class did a song and poem relating to a season. Ben's class had summer. They recited a poem in unison and then sang their song, complete with choreography. It was too cute. The other classes performed Frosty the Snowman, Singing in the Rain and a Halloween song.

On the second to the last day of school, Rachel's class performed their third play of the year, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." It was a shortened version, but they still used the real Shakespeare lines. Rachel played Cobweb, one of the fairies, and did an outstanding job, speaking her lines loudly so everyone could hear (this is a big accomplishment for Rachel as she is often softspoken). I've been so impressed with her teacher this year and the great job she did at exposing them to Shakespeare at such a young age (they performed an abbreviated version of Romeo and Julie earlier in the year).

Sarah was absolutely thrilled to receive a trophy at the end-of-the-year awards assembly. She got the trophy for getting second place in the science fair expo held earlier in the year. As you may recall, Sarah has long been jealous of the number of trophies Rachel has received from various activities, and has been trying to figure out how to snag some of her own. She had already been awarded a big ribbon for her project, so she didn't know she would get this trophy as well and was about busting her buttons when she got home. Sarah was also awarded a positive attitude award voted on by her teachers.

Welcome summer vacation! It is finally here!