School's out for Summer!

Well, almost. Today was my last day with my kids. At least until August. I'll be teaching my same class for first grade next year.
I feel like I've dropped off the blogging radar. I have over 600 posts in my google reader and I haven't posted anything worthy of sharing. But today I have a few things to share and I hope to get back on a blogging schedule by this weekend. I am suppose to guest blog later this week. I hope my brain is working by then.
I've been seeing all kinds of cute end of the year gifts out there in blog land. I've never really done any end of the year gifts for my kids. I usually take them to the Donut Friar. I teach in downtown Gatlinburg, TN. If you ever come visit, you need to go to the Village. It has some of the best stores and shops in town. I worked at a shop there in high school and in college. We can walk there from the school. So Friday we walked over and the kids got donuts.

This bird was literally begging my kids for pieces of their donuts. It was funny and one of my kids insisted I take a picture.
Well, this weekend I decided I would do a gift for my parent volunteers and then decided I would also make something for my kids.
For my parent volunteers, I bagged up a sugar cookie bar and added a cute ribbon. I also made them a picture frame and added a picture of their child on the first day of school.

I added a tag I downloaded from The Teacher Wife that said it was a treat to have your help this year. I had some time to kill on Sunday while Chris was at the jail. He's a Gideon and does a church service at the jail once a month. There is a big lots really close. I shopped around in there and found some little cups. I ended up taking those and writing the kid's name and then "Kindergarten was all good." I added a cool straw, bubbles, a notepad and a pencil. They seemed to like them.

We had an end of the year party today. The kids enjoyed playing some games stacking cups and then using a straw to blow the cup across the table. It was a great way to end the school year. It usually isn't that sad since I'll have them again, but one of boys who I'll miss dearly is changing schools next year. I was sad to say goodbye to him.
So I've finally finished some of my clutter free classroom challenge. I usually don't clean stuff out very well at the end of the school year. It usually happens in the summer when I'm getting ready to go back. But this year, I cleaned out 2 of my cabinets and some files before the end of the year. Well I was going to share a couple of pictures but my computer is not cooperating. Oh well. Maybe I'll do a before and after post later this week. I'm getting so excited about summer. I still have 2 and a half days to get through before I'm truly free. I getting to keep my niece one day a week for the summer and I'm super excited. I hope to try some fun learning things with her. She's only 1 and a half but she's a little sponge. How's your summer shaping up?