Last week of school!

This week was the last week of school and is my last week at Welborn in KCK. I am sad to leave many things, but very excited for a new opportunity. I'm also happy to say there are only 2 days (well, 1 now!) days of school left before summer break!

Balloons

I did this last year and did it again this year. I originally started with about 15 balloons counting down school. In each balloon is a slip of paper with an activity that the class gets to do the next day if we have a good day.  Today's balloon was to have a "slumber party" in the classroom. I have students bring blankets and pillows and we spend the entire day on the floor for our last day festivities. The students really loved it last year and I'm sure they will again this year!  (The last balloon has my age in it because for some reason this class is incredibly interested in how old I am!)

 Sunglasses Project

I'd seen the sunglasses with lines on TpT (It does cost money, but this is the link!) so I broke down and spent the $2.50 for the template, bought some big poster paper and let the kids' imaginations run wild! 

In the glasses they had to write 2 paragraphs about what they are doing or would like to do this summer. Then they were to draw themselves doing something they mentioned in their paragraphs.

These are only a couple of them, but they are turned out really great and I think the families are going to be excited to see these too!

Keepsake books

Many of my students didn't get yearbooks so each year I do keepsake books where they write about their friends and their favorites. I posted the link for it on my post last year if you're interested!

End of the Year

So in case you were wondering, there are 8 days of school left!

Here's an idea that I got from pinterest-- when there are about 10-15 days left of school you hang up that number of balloons.  I changed it a bit to work with my classroom. In each balloon, I have a slip of paper with an activity or privilege that the students will get to do the next day.  For my kiddos who are a bit of a handful now that the end of the year is upon us, I've worked it into my classroom management. I have my students sitting in "teams" (with a few islands) that have cups on their desks for beads. After each instructional time (math, math groups, reading, reading groups, and science/social studies), they can earn beads for their team. Usually the class is working toward having lunch outside for the entire class, but now we're working towards popping those balloons at the end of the day.

And the balloons are filled with really simple ideas like: 5 extra minutes of recess time, Mrs. Kietzman brings a snack, dance party time, 10 minutes of free time on computers, reading lesson outside, etc. If you need ideas you can comment and I'll send you my full list.

Another thing we're working on now that it's the end of the year is our memory books. Not all of my students will be getting yearbooks and even for those who are, this is a fun way for them to record their favorite parts about 4th grade, their best friend, their favorite school event, etc.

It's a really cute booklet and it has a chance for students to do a lot of writing and drawing about their favorites for the year.

Here's a link to the website:  School Memories Book

All you need to do is sign up for the website, but it's free and this packet is free as well as a lot of other resources on the site.

One more thing I'd like to share is a good search engine for kids to use called Kid Rex What I like about it is that it's created by Google, but makes searching Google sites appropriate for kids. Right now I have students researching countries for our upcoming cultural fair and this site helps take away the worry that comes with having students use the computer for research.

That's all for now! I'm hoping the next post will be a lot about my upcoming plans for classroom organization. I am very inspired right now and will probably be working on creating some of those things this week! Get ready for more pictures and info!