Wow - what a year! When I started at my new school this past year, after having resigned from my school district last year, I didn't know. I didn't know anything. If I was going to stick with it, like it, hate, love it, or anything, really. I just kind of went in with an open mind. It was a WORLD different than what I had been doing for the last 18 years, but I really LIKED it.
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Now that I won't be a first year teacher (after 18 years lol) and my kids won't be first year students with a new curriculum and expectations, I really do plan to blog about more, and create more to go with what our curriculum is.
If you want to see my last post, which I did before school even started, it's HERE on my personal blog. I never even GOT to my teacher blog. ha!
The last three days were early release so I just used those days as our theme days.
1. Summer Time
2. Game Day
3. Hollywood Stars
One of my favorite things we do is these Party Pineapples! Gosh, I love them every year. I put them on black paper to frame them, and then give them a "plaque" and make an art gallery out of our front walls. If I had a hallway where people walk through, I'd hang them, but I don't, it's just us 2 teachers upstairs, so, we hung them for us to be happy looking at them. These take ALL day almost, so it's a great early release day activity.
On this same day, since it's "summer themed," we celebrate the summer birthdays (including mine!). I got this idea from another blogger, Stephanie, but you use ice cream sandwiches instead of scooping ice cream! It's magical. lol. We do alllll the toppings, but the ice cream sandwiches are a game changer.
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The next day is Game Day. Basically, I just do a bunch of Minute to Win It Games. I have a few parent volunteers to man the stations, and they rotate after a minute. Here are some ideas we did this time.
- Fruit Loop Stack (on a popsicle stick)
- Cookie Face
- Tic-Tac Chopstick pick up
- M & M straw (pick up an M & M by sucking through a straw and place it into another bowl)
They also did paper airplanes this day and bubbles during recess.
Here are some ideas on THIS post.
Other seasonal Minute to Win Game Posts HERE
After the games, we came back and did a directed drawing from Art Hub - pineapples, of course.
Another thing we spend a few days doing is their Memory Book. I have stored their pages from the beginning of the year, and after they finish their end of the year ones, I staple the books together. I LOVE being able to see how much they've grown in the school year.
Look at the difference in their drawings and writing from the BOY 👆to the EOY 👇!
You can find these memory books HERE.
And on the last day, we do our classroom awards. I got the red carpet idea from a blogger, Reagan, MANY years ago. I get the red rolly paper for them to walk on and then a red tablecloth from the dollar store and put yellow stars on it as the backdrop. It such a POP for the pictures!
This year, I got smart and just made a template in PPT with a star and typed in their names and printed them on yellow paper. Then I had my daughter cut them out. ha!
And we ended with movie day - popcorn with M & Ms in it.
Click the link to find some other END OF YEAR IDEAS
Check out my post on End of the Year Books. to see which books I like to read. I always plan to read them all, but of course, time runs out, like always.
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