Five for Friday- June 26th (End of the School Year Edition)

I'm linking up today with Kacey at Doodlebugs Teaching to join her Five for Friday link up.  Let's call this the "end of the school year" edition.

The last twenty minutes of the school day we have a period called Homebase.  It's a time when students can visit any teacher for help or work on homework.  I hit the jackpot this year with such a fun, sweet, delightful group of 20+ students in my HB.  This year my kids started a tradition of "Fun Friday" in our HB where students would play some sort of whole group game every Friday.  I had more than one student unofficially "adopt" themselves into our HB.  This group will always have a special place in my heart because they're that awesome!

These are my amazing Homebase students.  Love, love, love, and miss them!

Packing up my classroom at the end of the year is definitely NOT my favorite thing to do.  So much less fun and rewarding than setting up the classroom at the beginning of the year.  My style of organizing involves spreading piles everywhere.  It always looks so much worse than it is when I am organizing (maybe it is that bad).  When I start to get overwhelmed with the task at hand I find it therapeutic to do some sort of completely unnecessary "micro-organizing" project.  Once I look at something perfectly organized I feel a sense of calm and get back to the dreadful task at hand of packing everything up to close out another school year.

I call this micro-organizing.

It's what I do when I want to avoid necessary organizing.

Like this.  Calgon take me away!

This is where all the important stuff goes so I can find it right away when I come back in August.

After TWO extra days of coming back this summer, I finally got everything packed up.

Finally ready to officially start my summer a week after school ended.

Look how great my door looks after a full year.  I usually take it down every summer, but this year I will save myself a couple hours in August by not having to decorate it again.

I'm happy to say I eventually got everything packed up and closed the book on another fabulous school year.

The end of the year involved several celebrations for all our hard work and accomplishments this year.  We had a party in my Homebase and each of my Core Plus classes.  It involved more food than we could eat in one class period so we had enough food to carry over the next day.  Cupcakes are one of my love languages.

She decorated them with math symbols/numbers.  LOVE!

These cupcakes tasted as amazing as they looked.  This girl loves a good cupcake!

This year marks the end of an era.  My dear friend Linda and I have been on the 7 Blue team together for over a decade.  Our team members have changed over the years, but she and I remained together.  She found out at the end of this year that *surprise* she was being moved to 8th grade.  Linda is one of the most positive people you could ever hope to work with.  I will miss her so very very much and miss our between class chats in our little hallway "cul de sac".  They have not yet hired the teacher that will be replacing her. :(

Good-bye Mrs. Scherrer. *sniffle*sniffle

I'm always amazed and humbled by the generosity of the students I teach and their families.  This end of the year was no exception.  My students know me so well.  It's always nice to be appreciated.  My favorite thing is the good-bye letters my students write to me.   If I need a pick me up I know reading those will put a smile on my face.

Spoiled again by my wonderful students.

Feeling so blessed and grateful. Can you believe that gorgeous bag?!

Well that's a wrap on the 2014-2015 school year.  It was another great one.  Thanks to all my students for making my 25th year of teaching one of my best!  I love and will miss every one of you.