It's Closing Time...

So the end of every year is bittersweet...Every teacher can understand the excitement for summer vacation, and the sadness over leaving these students who have walked through your world for months on end.  That is  where I'm at right now.  I'm working on putting together their end of the year gift.  Each year I do something a little different...as I get bored easily.  As always, I am an obsessive picture taker. All throughout the year, as I took and printed new pictures, I would hang them on our "Say What?" bulletin board.  Then, when I took the old pictures down, I filed them into stacks for each student.  I found these craft foam photo album kits at Oriental Trading and made them up for each student:

Then I have an end of the year poem that can be found in my TeachersPayTeachers store--visit me HERE.

When I was sitting at my step-daughter's high school graduation, watching many of my former students walk the stage, each time I would lean over and whisper to Claire, "That was one of Mommy's kids..."  And I wondered if these young adults realize that they will forever "be" someone to me...I will forever feel that tiny bit of ownership in the person they are.  The next day I sat down and made up the bookmarks to put on their end of the year gifts.  In my store I have many different format options, but on my students, I worked to create a personal stick kid version of "them"...which I then placed on their bookmark.

I laminated them and placed their photo album and name magnet (from our attendance/lunch/milk board) 

in each bag, and taped their bookmark on the front:

I always hope these things make it home in one piece so that their parents get to enjoy them, as well...although with some backpacks I have my doubts!  :)  And now I sit here, in my explosion of a classroom...borders and posters and books tossed EVERYWHERE...knowing I have one and a half more days to go...that's IT.  Insanity....