It may seem strange to reflect on the closing of our year back in June when our momentum at this point in the summer is urging us toward September (why do the stores put "Back to School" things up in July?!) But the end of the year is closely linked to its beginning.
The final days of school hold many traditions – serious and silly – that mark the end of our time together as a class. It's no small thing to leave each other and rituals can help us mark the passing of our class. The configuration of personalities will never exist again; it's something we feel acutely in those last days of the Herons. So, what do we do?
We're Silly
The final day of school is our carnival day. Every year, the Cranes make spooky potions out of Kool-Aid. Every year, the Meadowlarks tell our fortunes (always good). And every year, the Herons fish for kids while sitting on the forbidden green tube. The "fish" scramble for our bait – simple washer necklaces, marked with the year (usually made frantically by the whole class in the first minutes of the day.) We almost always paint facial hair on our fellow school-mates – facial hair being one of the Herons' many fascinations. And then we make something up. This year, we hosted kid jousting with pool noodles and piggy back rides. It was very, very silly (and just a little dangerous so we made sure to wear eye protection.)
Carnival always seems to me a perfect expression of "Herons being Herons." They are so comfortable with each other having played and failed and learned together all year. Being creative and silly comes naturally to them by this point.
We're Serious
Of course, we have our fifth grade tradition of Simon reading "Oh the Places You'll Go" to the departing class and our graduation ceremony where we can take the time to celebrate each fifth grader's gifts to us. (There is a silly fifth grade tradition of sneaking into a secret part of the basement to mark our names on the walls alongside graduates going back to the nineties!)
The Herons have a few of their own serious traditions. We gather together in a special place and receive a necklace that we hold while we each share a moment of the year we want the rest of the class to remember for us. The fifth graders receive a Hens and Chicks plant, descendants of a plant from a long ago Heron class project. The plant reproduces by creating smaller versions of itself which then head off to become new plants — luckily, after two years of learning about authors' craft, the symbolism is not lost on the fifth graders. They are off to new places, but will be bringing with them the spirit of learning and caring they cultivated at Prairie Creek.
We also have a place for the fifth graders to leave their mark in the classroom. They join a growing flock of hand-print Herons on our wall. While we began making the Herons only four years ago, the tradition of signing the walls of the school goes way, way back and I still have pictures of the walls in the old lofts where students had signed for years before our renovation. As students leave, it's important for them to know they've made a difference in our school and that they will always have a connection to this place. The handprint is a physical reminder of their impact.
Goodbye – Hello
And we make our goodbyes so that we are ready to say our hellos. The fifth graders' special place in the classroom is acknowledged in our final hours together so that the fourth graders can begin to see their new role more clearly. They are the ones who will be saying goodbye in a year's time. They are the ones who now carry the mantle of the classroom forward. They are the keepers of what it is to be a Heron. And, as our new Herons walk through the door, the new fifth graders will be there to greet them, show them around and, maybe, give them a nice handlebar mustache.
The Rookery 
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