Graduation Day

We celebrated Kindergarten Graduation at Archer Academy on May 22.  It was a super fun day.  The night before, after they went to sleep, Brent and I decorated Andrew and Coleman's room with streamers, balloons, and a Congrats banner.  When Andrew woke up the next day, he came to our room where we were getting ready and said, "I would like to know what in the world happened to my room while I was sleeping?!"  He was all smiles and I could tell he loved it.  Here are a few pictures we made before breakfast.

At the table, there were decorations, a "genius" hat as he calls it, and the red plate for breakfast.

We got dressed and gave him his diploma.  He's wearing his Archer Academy field trip shirt Gigi made for him this year.  Coleman was very proud of his big brother.

And his teacher was super proud of her favorite student!

We had told Andrew we were going on a surprise field trip for his graduation day.  We took Jonathan to spend the day with Gigi and Papack.  He was very excited and not a bit phased that we left.  I think he loves having his grands to himself!  Then we headed downtown to The Varsity for lunch.

Back in the spring, several things happened at once that led me to the idea of a unit study of the Titanic for our end of the year finale.  Andrew has really loved all things history related this year, and since it was the 100th anniversary of the sinking, it was a great last unit for us.  We read lots of books, did lots of research, and learned a lot about the ship, its structure, the passengers, and the tragedy of the sinking.  One of the reasons we did the study was so that we could take the boys to the Titanic exhibit at Atlantic Station.  And that was our surprise field trip for the day.  They were both super excited!

Inside the exhibit we weren't allowed to take pictures, of course.  As we walked through and saw the artifacts and displays, Andrew surprised me with how much detail he remembered from our study.  He knew all about Molly Brown, the ship's captain and designers, the band, and so much more.  It struck me as we looked at the artifacts, that those things belonged to real people long ago.  People who were going on a huge adventure, and had no idea how horribly it would end up.  It's easy to forget how real it was.  Coleman's favorite part of the exhibit was a large iceberg they had with finger holes you could put your hand in.  You could easily understand how no one in the water survived longer than twenty minutes.

After the exhibit, we found an ice cream shop and the boys got a scoop. 

It was a perfect day for our outing.  Great weather, a fun activity, and great memories.  It was a great end to our first year of school.