Kindergarten students at East Aiken Elementary School of the Arts on Wednesday "got funky" for their families and friends at their end-of-the-year program.
At the start of the program, the students expressed their excitement as they sang along to various songs during a slide show filled with photos of them participating in different activities throughout the year. Photos of the students reading and interacting with each other gave a quick overview of the past seven months to those in attendance.
One by one, each group out of the four kindergarten classes got up and performed a song that showed a little of what the children had learned throughout the year - even tossing in a bit of humor with lyrics like, "x is for exciting, I wish I could spell."
That particular song ended with the students using sign language to repeat the entire alphabet, which surprised many of the parents, including Camitrus Ware. Her son Kyson McLeod was a part of the program, and she was really amazed when she saw her son signing.
"That was something new, something different," Ware said.
One of the more active songs, "Get Funky," led by teacher Vicky Thompson, didn't have much singing, but got the students up and moving with a line dance, which probably fit her just right.
"I can't sing at all, but I love integrating music into my lessons ... they learn so much," Thompson said.
Thompson expressed how much she has enjoyed teaching the students, and loves this type of program because it shows how much the students have progressed from the beginning of the school year to the end. The curriculum that the kindergarten students have now was once the curriculum of the first-graders, she said.
Another parent, Sandy Mundy, was pleased with how excited her daughter, Madison, is about going to school every day, and she is impressed with the amount her daughter has learned.
"Madison learned her numbers up to 100. I'm really surprised how she advanced with that," Mundy said.
The program ended with a graduation-like tradition, where the students were each called up, name-by-name, and were greeted with a handshake from their principal, Lisa Fallaw.
The students didn't seem to want to leave after the program ended, but as Fallaw said, it was time to give them back to their parents for the next nine weeks.