Juniper is officially a preschool graduate! Yesterday we attended a very sweet graduation celebration for the OCP Larks (pre-K) class.
Ms. Shannon called up each child and read out their proclamations of what they will do in school next year. "When Juniper is a kindergartener, she will have fun playing and paint her toenails."
T-H-E L-A-R-K-S O-F O-C-P! (You may need to zoom in to see it.)
Hooray! The kids were really excited to get to the part of the ceremony where they got to throw their letter boards up into the air. They had a hard time holding on to the boards long enough to show off what they spelled.
All of the Larks were asked to bring in a rock with their names, decorated however the child chose. The kids left their rocks in the OCP play garden, to represent their time at the school.
Juniper and Claudia
Most of the Larks...
...and their very enthusiastic parents.
Juniper and the very beloved Ms. Shannon. Juniper was fortunate to have Ms. Shannon as her teacher for her 2-year old class and her pre-K class.
Hazel didn't care much for the ceremony that blocked access to the bike path, but she was very excited about the celebratory ice cream cone.
Juniper was reluctant about having her photo taken; as a result, there's no photo where both Aaron and I are looking at the camera. At least one of us is cajoling Juniper in all the photos of the three of us.
Juniper's friend Thomas was even more reluctant to be in photos, but Aaron had the magic touch to convince him to join in on our family photo.
Thomas and his mother Paula are among our very favorite people at OCP. Thomas is unquestionably Juniper's best friend at OCP, and the two of them have a special and delightful relationship.
The other photo has more people looking at the camera, but Juniper's expression in this one is so terrific we can't resist the duplicate shot.
Thomas, Juniper, and Claudia have been in the same class all three of their years at OCP.
It has been a delight to watch them over the years. Look how much they've grown since
their first class picture! (And that was taken at the end of the year; I wish I could link to one of the three of them at the start of the year.)
Self portrait of Juniper as a kindergartener. (I will confess, I got a little teary-eyed when Ms. Shannon gave us this.)
We couldn't imagine a better preschool experience for Juniper. Our heartfelt thanks to Ms. Shannon, Ms. Wendy, Ms. Betty, and all the amazing OCP families that work so hard to make the school the special place it is.
