Has the time really passed so quickly? It feels as though the very first week of kindergarten was only yesterday, with all the anxious mornings of settling in, the adjustment period that was perhaps harder for me than it ever was for my daughter. She loved her kindergarten, and above all she adored her wonderful teacher. I will admit to a quiet envy of that woman. She spent whole days playing, singing, and making things with my child, and she became one of the true heart-people in my daughter's life, and in mine as well. She always left me feeling reassured, knowing my daughter was in good hands.
And now that gentle, unhurried time of playing, discovering, and crafting was drawing to a close. Our teacher had always found wonderful occasions to encourage the children's creativity and bring a little joy to the parents, and it was those small, always slightly lopsided, always deeply personal handmade gifts that I would miss most.
What is the right farewell gift for a kindergarten teacher?
It felt like a truly significant turning point was approaching. Years of familiarity were ending. How do you properly thank someone who has been such a generous and constant presence? We gathered with the other parents from the group to talk it through, because we wanted to give something together. But it had to be something personal, something that could not be bought off a shelf. We researched and found, through Moments, the possibility of having individual engravings set permanently onto a pendant on a necklace. We asked every child to write their name by hand on a piece of paper, because learning to write their names was something they had practised together with their teacher all year. Those very first, careful, imperfect attempts at writing were then preserved by the Moments team across two small engraving plates.
The last day of kindergarten
On the final day there was a wonderful farewell celebration, and the children were sent off into the wider world as almost-schoolchildren. They found it all enormously exciting and were buzzing with energy the whole day through. We parents, and especially we mothers, were considerably more sentimental, and tears came and went more than once. At the very end, each teacher gathered once more with her children and their parents in the group room, and there were many warm, personal words exchanged and wishes given. As a final flourish, the children presented their farewell gift together. Their teacher was genuinely overjoyed by the necklace.
Thank you, dear parents of Kita Pusteblume, for allowing us to be part of this farewell.