Family life

How do you celebrate the end of the school year?

Most people organize gifts for teachers, but Tracy wonders if you do anything for your kids.

By Tracy Chappell

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Five more days. No more agendas or spelling tests or reams of art work. I wish I could say we’d be finished with packed lunches too, but camps await Anna. (I’m so glad that we have this last summer of Avery being in daycare, so I haven’t had to stitch together a camp/grandparent/vacation day plan for her.)

Anna’s pretty pumped for the last day of school. And while Avery’s day-to-day won’t change, she’s thrilled to become an SK. I’m very proud of both of them and all they’ve accomplished this year.

But then, this from Anna: “How are we going to celebrate the end of school?”

Hmmm… How indeed? Celebrating the end of school seems like something we should do. Last June, Anna had a big SK graduation ceremony, which marked the occasion with lots of pomp and excitement (she was surprised to learn this year that she doesn’t get a “graduation” after every grade).

I wondered if I should be buying the girls a gift, or taking them somewhere to do something special. They’ve always wanted to do Build-a-Bear, for example. And I have some gifts stashed away (books and things) and this would give me a good reason to give them to the girls. But I’m not sure if I should set the precedent. At the same time, I want to let them know I’m proud of all their hard work this year and know that it is something to celebrate. I remember my parents taking us to Dairy Queen on the last day of school and letting us get whatever we wanted. That was pretty thrilling at the time.

I asked Anna what she had in mind for celebrating. “Let’s make a cake!” she exclaimed. “Or maybe we could go out for dinner!”

So I guess we better decide what our end-of-year tradition will be.

How do you mark the end of a school year with your kids? Do you give them gifts or do anything special? Our comments are turned off, so tweet me @T_Chappell.

This article was originally published on Jun 25, 2013

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