Natomas Unified’s first graduating class of 2019 walked across the stage today, little guys and gals who completed an eight-week Play Group program designed to give them a leg up on Kindergarten.
How best to show assembled family and friends what you’ve learned? Some of the kids performed the “Hokey Pokey,” while others joined them later for a rousing rendition of the “Baby Shark” song incorporating music, movement, rhythm, and a catchy hook that ends nearly every line with “doo doo doo doo doo doo” sung super fast.
Fun was the order of this day – like every other day in Play Groups, funded in part by First 5 Sacramento. Very young kids, ages 0-5, were exposed to literacy and learning, three hours a week, at Natomas Park, Witter Ranch and American Lakes schools.
Participating youngsters were accompanied by their parents at Play Group, where they did activities ranging from writing to coloring to playing with building blocks, dolls, plastic toys, stuff animals, a simulated oven, plastic dinosaurs, or numerous other playthings.
At today’s ceremony, each “graduate” was called onto the Witter Ranch Elementary School stage today to receive a certificate that exclaimed, “You Did It!” Four of the kids were honored for perfect attendance as well: Lucas Maduri, Grayson Stiles, Riya Jain, and Charvi Bandhakavi.
Parents snapped photos for relatives, posterity, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, not necessarily in that order.
Each graduation certificate featured the “Cat in the Hat” character of Dr. Seuss, beloved children’s author whose famous rhymes include this one: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”
Fitting, indeed.
