End of year traditions

We have a lot of "end of year" traditions at our school. The first is... packing up the entire school. Yea, doesn't sound like a whole lot of fun you say? Well, it isn't. Our school house also serves as a sort of community building and in the summer time our school is rented out to different groups and organizations which means we have to pack and stuff away all the desks, book cases, tables, and so on into every nook and cranny of our little school house. It is quite the task, but luckily this year the middle schoolers were strong enough to do a lot of the muscle work! And that made their teacher ever so happy!

Seriously, I have waited a long time to have my kids be able to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to packing up our school!

My muscles thank you boys!

And look how happy they are... silly kids who actually like moving and lifting things.

Aww, super cute.

Another end of year tradition is our trip to the Novelty for free ice cream (and other delicious treats!) We are very grateful to the Novelty folks who supply us with free ice cream as a "way to go! You made it through the year" treat!

We usually get our end of year ice cream on the last day of school, but this year we went a day early because of 8th grade graduation.

Now that is a face who is excited for some traditional ice cream.

She was so excited she got to have TWO scoops.

It may have been raining on ice cream day, but the ice cream still tasted as good as ever!

And our final tradition: planting a tree for our graduating eighth grader. Above is Gabe's pine tree. It is so cute.

The fabulous Kathie has taken on making sure this tradition continues for the kids at our school. I am lucky to have Gabe's tree planted in my yard. That means I can hang out with him (in the form of a tree) any time I want!

It's a lot of work to plant one's tree...

Good thing we brought reinforcement.

Did I mention it was raining the whole time we were planting? We didn't mind... and neither did the tree.

Time to roll that baby into the whole.

Cutting the tree loose. I named him Arnold in honor of Gabe's memorable role as Governor Arnold in the Christmas play.

Each tree that is planted for a graduating eighth grader there is a certain meaning behind it. Gabe asked for a pine tree because it is pretty common on Monhegan and just blends in among the rest of the trees, which is what he likes to do.

Gabe and his peeps.

I have to say I love this tradition.