Balloon Pop Countdown!

There are some activities that, as teachers, we enjoy and find just as memorable as the students.  The balloon pop countdown is one for me!  Every single year, it never fails, that students are enthralled by the idea of having a surprise inside each of the 10 balloons.  I tweak the ideas from year to year, depending on schedules, events, and supplies.  The idea is that each day the balloon is popped and inside is an engaging activity the students will be participating in that day.  Not only does this make lasting memories, but also creates a state of play within our classrooms that actually motivates students to keep giving their all....even on the very last days of school! 

I have done the "Treat" as a surprise reward in the past and ALL.DAY.LONG the kids asked and asked what it was.  So, I thought to change it up a bit this year and give clues throughout the day to keep them at bay: 

1. It comes in many different colors.

2. It has a lot of sugar. 

3. It is individually packaged.

4. Other than the package...you can't eat all the parts.

5. It will melt.

CAN YOU GUESS?

Our schedule just fell to where there was a field trip planned for the very end of the year. Our recreation center was having a 20th anniversary celebration and invited the schools to attend a one man circus presentation!  Jason D'Vaude put on an amazing show! Check out his site below.

https://www.dvaude.com/

 

Although kids act as if they would love to watch a movie every day of the week....it never seems to fail that when the opportunity arises they complain about the movie choice or otherwise lack attention to actually watch the movie.  Hence, the need for a super engaging movie to keep the students' interests. 

The students are astonished each year when the flour, salt, and water turn to play-doh right before their eyes. Once again, a play-state is achieved in our classroom and students are genuinely engrossed in authentic inquiry and learning. 

Shaving cream day is also one that goes down as one of the best days!  The looks on their faces when the shaving cream is sprayed on their desks is priceless!!!

Field day is one of the most exhausting days of the year....but also one of the most enjoyable!  This game is so simple and can be used for a wide variety of age groups.  I have two sets of the alphabet written on sponges the game is played as a relay.  Each student comes to the bucket, finds the next letter in the sequence, and then runs back to the team. 

On the last day of school the students each were given a Frisbee to autograph and we spent some quality play time with each other before saying our final goodbyes!

End of the Year Part 3

 I am officially on summer vacation, but I know many of you still have days or even weeks to go... sorry #not sorry.  This is my part 3 and final portion of my end of the year posts.  If you are interested in reading here are links to Part 1 and Part 2.  Just a quick recap: for the last 10 days of school we did a balloon pop countdown.  This was my first year doing this type of countdown.  I previously taught K and we counted down the last 26 days to go along with the alphabet - A to Z and then only did fun things the last 10 days.  Here are the details on our final four days of the year!  

Day 4 was No Papers Day!  This should have been called No Worksheets day.  I planned a day full of hands on, engaging, and academic activities!  We played a spelling review game using the resource list I have utilized all year.

I saw this idea on pinterest and tweaked it a bit for my classroom.  I printed enough copies for my class and one for myself.  My copy I simply wrote a fact specific to each student and only that student.  Some I had were: "shares a middle name with Mrs. Evans" "races dirt bikes" "has a March birthday" etc. I cut my spaces apart to be used as the cards.  Then the kids wrote each students' name on a space.  We used my name too so it would be 20 spaces.

The smile on the faces when the class shouted their name was priceless.  This game was a lot of fun!!

For math we did a survey activity that I found for FREE from Shoelaces and Sugar Cookies!  You can find it in her TPT store by clicking on one of the pictures below.

 I demonstrated the directions of the activity then I distributed different surveys to the kids. It was more interesting not having the same survey!

 Day 3 was shaving cream day!!  No primary classroom can end their year WITHOUT putting shaving cream on our desks.  The kids reactions to the shaving cream are sooo funny.  We did some word work and then they got some time to free play with the cream.

Later in the afternoon we had fun with some parts of speech and math review.

This was a freebie sample from a larger pack compliments of The Classroom Key. You can grab the freebie in her store by clicking on the picture.

 This is one of my creations that is a fun way to review math skills with a summer theme!  This is another activity the kids love!  You can grab a copy by clicking the picture below to head to my TPT store!

Day 2 was field day!!  Our school only has field day for first grade and up.  Because I previously taught K, this was my first time running a game for field day. I found this idea on pinterest and made it work for us.  Sadly, I think I may have also jinxed field day because it was the coldest field day many of the veteran teachers can remember. My buckets of sponge letters were supposed to be filled with soapy water...I made the executive decision to cut out the water component.  Even without the water this game was extremely successful.  It also only cost less than $10!

Day 1 was autograph day! I really have no idea how the last day of school sneaked up sooo quickly, but we had A LOT going on and I didn't get a picture.  I usually purchase the kids an end of the year gift and wanted something new and creative. Each kid got a beach ball that I purchased off of Amazon 12 for about $9!!  They are $1 at dollar tree so cheap either way.  We rotated the beach balls around the room and everyone got to sign each other's beach balls.  Then of course we played inside for about 30 minutes and outside for about 15 minutes.  This was an AMAZING way to use our time the last day when the kids energy level is through the roof!  It was the perfect example of organized chaos.

Lastly, I wanted to share a great freebie I made to send home with the kids to try and prevent the summer slide!

End of the Year Part 2 {FREEBIES}

The end of the year countdown is no new thing, but I thought I would share with you some fun things we are doing and have included a few freebies along the way as well!

Free painting!! With the hustle and the bustle of school there is very little time to let the kids do creative projects.  I even had some asking "I can paint what ever I want?!"  It actually kind of made me sad that they are so over-directed.

Eat with the teacher day!!  This is one of the those days where you truly see how little it takes to please children.  They were ecstatic to eat together outside!

Ice cream day!!  I just told the kids there would have been a special treat....however....I think next year it would be fun to make up some clues to give throughout the day and have the kids make and revise predictions as we go along!

First Grade Fun Day!!  This is by far my most favorite day yet!  We made homemade play-dough...the ENTIRE FIRST GRADE!  We did some fun rotations where each class got to do an activity with each teacher.  Some tips I learned.....if you let the kids help add the ingredients you need at least 45 min. to an hour for this activity.  Without them doing the adding you can easily complete within 30 min.  Teach the kids to flatten their play-dough and then add a few drops of food coloring in a bowl-like fashion....this way most of the food coloring gets on the dough FIRST and not on their hands.  It will come off with multiple washes!

Click the pictures below for a FREE copy of our play-dough recipe!

 

Extra Recess!! I actually had a sub this day so I didn't snag any pictures but hey, we all know what recess looks like!

Bubble Day!!  After the play-dough, this is my second runner up for my most favorite day.  We did all things bubble!  

We had fun listening to POP by Meghan McCarthy and learned about how bubble gum was invented.  We then did a fact and opinion sort that was FREE from All Y'All Need!  Just click the pics below to take you to her TPT store and grab yourself a copy!

We also did some fun bubble art using black construction paper and pastels.  To top it all of we did bubble math using bingo daubers!  This is also a FREE download from Jessica Michele through her TPT store!  Click the picture to grab a copy!

Come back next week to see what else we are doing for our final week!

I leave you with another FREEBIE!  I made these quick gifts for my daughter's preschool teachers...she has five, so it is great on a tight budget!  Clicking the pictures will get you the link for the download!