It's so sad how quickly this school year went. Kaylee was excited about going to school EVERY SINGLE DAY. She had the best teacher and awesome classmates. I love her passion for learning and her joy she gets when she masters a new skill.

The second to last day of school was the awards assembly and class party. Kaylee had a different second half of the school year than we expected. We found out that she has some speech and some fine motor strength skills that were causing some issues with her work. She started meeting with the speech and O.T. specialists at the school to work on stuff.

  Kaylee worked very hard on her "finger exercises" and was able to have legible handwriting by the end of the year. You seriously could not read a thing she wrote prior to her O.T. sessions. The difference is AMAZING.

Kaylee as we all know is epically klutzy. She was the only kiddo to get assisted off the stage by TWO staff members. I was kinda craking up when I saw this happen. Her teachers aid is the one in stripes. She knows Kaylee all to well and wasn't going to let her down those steps solo. HA.

So I seriously don't know why these photos are sideways and cannot for the life of me figure out how to fix them (refusing to ask Jon to do it for me. I WILL figure this out. Eventually, just not now….)     This is Kaylee with Mrs. B. We love her so much.And Kaylee with Mrs. W. This lady is AMAZING. We love her too.

Her teacher did a class awards ceremony where she gave each child an individual award and said sweet things about them. Lots of the children got similar awards. Kaylee was the only one to receive "The most persistent" award. Mrs. B told the class how she was so impressed at how hard Kaylee tries, and how she never gives up. Even when it's something really frustrating she just keeps at it until it clicks. We have been trying to teach her to channel her stubbornness (which I think is a great quality to have) for good. Seems like we are doing okay. Yea. And I definitely like the word persistent over stubborn. So I will use that from now on.They did a super cute program for the parents that came to the end of year party. ADORABLE!

And we had them play several fun/funny games.

It was a fun end of year party. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had this year to be a homeroom Mom. I really don't think I will ever be able to spend so much time in the classroom ever again. I couldn't have done it with out Shannon watching Regan for me faithfully once a week, or without my awesome homeroom Mom team. It was such a great first year of school. Kaylee is super excited to do it all again next year.

And yes that does mean she will be doing Kindergarten again. It was a LONG process (months and many meetings) deciding that retention would be best to keep her love of school and learning going strong, and give her a chance to catch up on her speech, fine motor strength and speed (she works SOOO slow. Keeping pace was a major issue.). We really just don't want her to slowly start slipping behind and have school be a struggle EVER. She would do okay in first grade, and likely pass first grade but it would be difficult. And she would most likely end up hating school. Which would be so sad since she really really LOVES school.

Also after we finally made the decision I chatted with my school teacher Dad about it. BEST phone call ever. He thought it was a brilliant idea to give her another year and said that he sees too many students that just get shuffled through when they just are not quite ready and how hard that is for the students and teachers. His words were soothing balm to my soul.

So Kindergarten year one is done, and we are all looking forward to Kindergarten year two!