The Measure of a Year

Things are finally settling down for us in the Frog room. The members of the Frog class of 2009 have all finished transitioning to the three-year-old class (better known as "Possum Room"), and the members of the Frog class of 2010 are all settling in nicely. It's the end and the beginning of a cycle.
As one class gets ready to move on to their next room, we teachers spend a lot of time sorting through the many, many photos that we've taken throughout the school year. One thing that always stands out is how grown up the children look at the end of the year compared to the beginning of the year. Last September, we decided to measure our then-new Frogs using some pieces of ribbon we had in on the art shelves. We weren't sure what we were planning on doing with these ribbons, only that we wanted to measure the children again at the end of the year so we can show them how much they've grown. We set them aside until a few weeks ago, when the first Frog got ready to transition to the Possum room. We like to mark this occasion with some kind of special memento every year. In the past, we've made books, or photo CDs, or CD mixes of popular classroom music. This year, we thought of those ribbons and decided to incorporate them into a special gift for each of the children.

Since three is all about magical thinking, we decided that we couldn't come up with a better gift than a personalized magic wand- with a twist. Tucked in among those ribbon streamers that you see shooting out of the monogrammed felt star star on top of the wand is the solid colored grosgrain ribbon from September 2008 and a new, satin ribbon with rainbow colored stars all over it that we used to measure how tall our "graduates" were on their last day in the Frog room!

Over the year, we see so much evidence of growth in so many different areas with these children. They shift from being toddlers who are dependant on us for help with some of their most basic needs, to honest-to-goodness kids, who are aware of the impact that they have on the world around them and are ready to make things happen! It makes this work challenging, intellectually engaging, fun, and absolutely worthwhile. While we had some idea that the difference in height from the beginning of the year to the end of the year would be impressive, were not expecting it to be quite as impressive as it actually was. From our (admittedly crude) comparison, we found that most of the Frogs grew between four and six inches in a year!!!

As the "Senior frogs" made their way to the Possum room, we began welcoming the new class to the frog room. The new children watched the whole measuring and wand presentation ritual with great interest. "When will make me a magic wand?" Well, since we will definitely be doing this project again, we can answer; "Sooner than you think!" I guess we need to buy more ribbon this weekend for the class of 2010!

Thank you so much to the Frog class of 2009 and their families for making this such a fantastic year! We are looking forward to a great year with the class of 2010 and their families!