If you Give a Butterfly a Diploma...

Another school year, flown by. And now it's time to graduate!

 My apologies, but it seems I have no pictures to share! I will search my other camera, and put them up if I can fin any! Last year we a had a Lorax themed graduation that was pretty cool too!

I really wanted my class to be involved in the planning and decisions for this year. If You Give a Moose a Muffin by Laura Numeroff was one of my favorite stories when I was young, and I thought "What a great template for the class to write their own graduation play in this style!" And so, a theme was born.

First we decided what songs to sing. I asked the children to vote on their favorite songs that they learned this year. Out of a few that were requested almost daily, they decided on "Twinkle Twinkle Hanukkah Lights" and "I'm a Little Penguin". For a prop to hold while singing, the children each made a dreidel and penguin.


We worked on, "We Are Here to Graduate", to the tune of London Bridge. This is what we sing as we walk into graduation.

"We are here to graduate, graduate, graduate.
We are here to graduate, on this special day."

Then we learned "I'm a Little Graduate", to the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot".

"I'm a little graduate, Aren't you proud of me?

I know my numbers and ABC's.

I made lots of friends and had fun too,

Now, I'm off to the big kid school!"

Then we needed to talk about a performance to do. Since we were going with a If You Give a .... theme, what better thing to do than write our own!? Each day for a week, we "wrote" a story, each child giving what would happen next in a chain of events. I'll admit, some of them were pretty out there, but in the end, we focused in on a story centered around things in our own school.

To go with their part of the story, I drew simple illustrations of their part for them to color. At our ceremony, when it was their turn to speak, they held up their illustration too! Their parents LOVED it!! 

I turned the pages into a class book, so after graduation, I went back and wrote their spoken part on the page that they colored. It is something that I will treasure forever because I know how hard they all worked on their parts and I know that future classes of any age will love to see it.

I made little goodie bags with their names on them filled with some pieces of sidewalk chalk that I handed to each child when they got called for their diploma.  They were so happy!

It was such an amazing afternoon and I was so, so, SO proud of my kids and all the hard work that they did. This was the order that we followed for our graduation ceremony.

"We Are Here to Graduate"

School Owner and Director Speeches

My speech. =]

"Twinkle Twinkle Hanukkah Lights"

"I'm a Little Penguin"
"Telling: If You Give a Butterfly a Diploma"

Graduate: Diplomas!

"I'm a Little Graduate"

End!

Next week: Summer Camp!!

 Leave a comment below and let me know that you stopped by!