Jacob's Fifth Grade Graduation

Our fabulous son, Jacob, graduated from fifth grade and from elementary school today. The kids were asked to wear dress clothes for the ceremony but could change into street clothes for the picnic and parties for the rest of the day.

This is the fifth grade coming into the gym. I was fortunate to have a seat two rows behind Jacob. He looks pretty happy. The first part of the ceremony was Ms. Taylor, the principal, in black, and Mrs. Savant, the assistant principal,in pink, handing out Presidential Academic Achievement Awards. There were gold and silver awards and Jacob received a silver award.

I think it's a pretty award. All the kids received a pin to go with the award. Notice the top right corner.

All the silver award recipients. Jacob is top row, fourth from the left.

Little peek at mom, who just happened to have the camera zoomed up close.

Now it's time to hand out the graduation certificates. Each teacher read out the accomplishments and activities each child in her class was involved in throughout the year. This is Jacob's teacher, Mrs. Sparks. Jacob's list read, Safety Patrol, Science Fair participant, Honor Roll all Year, AV team (Audio/Visual team that helped with morning announcements;Jacob was camera crew), Fitness Club, Citizen of the Month, Junior Self Manager and Silver Presidential Award.

Jacob's fifth grade class. He is in the second row from the bottom, the third from the left.

After the certificates were handed out all the kids performed a song they had practiced for the ceremony. It was called, "How Do You Measure A Year". It was a great song.

The final part of the ceremony was a slide show entitled "The Big Picture". Each child was asked to think of what the big picture for them was and each child had their picture taken with their goal written down. This is what Jacob wrote:

The slideshow was put to music, which was awesome, but ran out before the slideshow was over. No problem for these fifth graders. They provided their own song which rocked the rest of the slideshow. I asked Jacob how all the kids knew the song, which was set to "Queen" "We Will Rock You", and he said that at recess, before they went to play, the four fifth graders who made the words up would teach it to the kids and they just practiced it every day. Here are the words:

Stomp, stomp, clap, stomp, stomp, clap

We will, we will rock you down and shake you up

Like a volcano will erupt

Watch out world, here we come

Fifth grade is #1

Come on everybody, let's go

Don't want to be late for fifth grade today

We've got math to learn, books to read, and labs to do

So come with me

We will, we will rock you down and shake you up

Like a volcano will erupt

Watch out world, here we come

Fifth grade is #1

It was a really cool performance and the kids were so psyched up.

Awww! Where did the happy go? He just wanted to get to the rest of the day, not stop to pose for a picture for Mom.

We are very proud of our graduating fifth grader. He did very well in school this year. He improved his math scores and was commended on his science TAKS test. He is looking forward to this summer where he will begin to learn to play the oboe in preparation for the Bowman Middle School band in the fall. Keep up the great and awesome work, Jacob!! We love you!