Josie's Awards Day

(Just a heads up for those of you that don't know: There are a lot of pictures in this blog.  If one is too small you can click on it and it will make it bigger.)


Yesterday was Josie's award ceremony at school.  I think I was just as sad the day she entered kindergarten as I was yesterday.  This year as flown by and the amount of things she learned in one year, I still can't believe.  She can write, she can read, she can do math, she is understanding some science, she knows money, she is working on telling time, and the list goes on and on.   She only had one sad face and a handful or two of straight faces the entire year.  She has done amazing on all her testing sometimes receiving perfect scores.  Joe and I are both so proud of the how great she has done.

Coosada Elementary has 19 kindergarten classes.  They are divided into groups of four and each group is called a "pod" and is known by a color.  Josie's class is in the Yellow Pod.  I took her to school yesterday morning and stayed for the Yellow Pod's awards ceremony.  All the kids from the Yellow Pod sang three songs-Baby Beluga (about a whale), Have you Ever Gone Fishing, and another song I can't remember the name of.

The pictures aren't the best.  We were in the gym which was dark and I was too far away to get good pictures, but if you look real close you can see Josie doing the moves to the songs.  She is on the right hand side third person on the first row of the standing kids.  She is in a blue, white, and purple dress with white leggings.

Then each kid from each class received an award.  Josie received the "Best Manner's Award." 

This is Josie starting to walk up to the principal to receive her award.

After each student received their award we went back to the classrooms to enjoy brunch with the kids.  Mrs. Jackson (Josie's teacher) had made each child a sand bucket with their name on it with all kinds of goodies inside.  There was a t-shrit with a sea horse that they colored and each student signed the back, a booklet she had made (see below), sunglasses, kool-aid with a straw, and some other goodies.  The kids had also made a video earlier in the week that she showed to us.  She first asked each child what their favorite part of kindergarten was (I couldn't understand Josie's answer and she didn't remember what she said), then she went back and asked each kid what they hoped to learn in first grade (Josie's answer was to be a better writer), and at the end each child said aloha (I know this may sound stupid but that really choked me up because she was saying goodbye to her kindergarten year.)  It was all really sweet and I am soooo glad I got to be there. 



 Here is a picture of Josie and Mrs. Jackson from Josie's very first day:

And a picture of the two of them yesterday:

When I left Josie let me take her bucket but insisted that she keep her t-shirt and booklet.  I told her to make sure she didn't lose them because those were the two most important things. 

When I picked her up Josie had two more awards/certificates with her:

She also brought home a journal that they had started writing in back in November. Each time they wrote the kids would have to sound words out as best they could or she may give them the beginning and she had to fill in the rest. Here are two of her journal entries. The colors are originally in color but I did not want to tear them out and I don't have a color copier.  This is the five of us eating shaved ice:

This was is about when she took the doll her Aunt Tiffany made her to show and tell:

Josie was mad at me that I did but her a yearbook, but this that Mrs. Jackson made is 500% times better than a yearbook b/c it is in essence her class' yearbook.  I absolutely love it!!

(She wrote that one of her best friends is Caden.  Isn't that sweet!!!!)

Well I guess she after May 31st she will officially be a first grader.