Tomorrow is the Last Day!!! and a favor to ask...

Tomorrow is our last day of school.  I'm going to miss my cute, sweet little kiddos, but I am also so looking forward to this summer!  Our school's last day tradition is to have a picnic day.  Our PTO rents inflatables for the kids to jump on and play in and we always have something brought in for lunch (tomorrow is McDonald's).  There is also an awards ceremony for students.  It is a nice way to end the year.  


So, I told you about the grant I won last week from Peabody Energy.  Now, Peabody Energy is now going to name one individual from each region as Educator of the Year.  That person will win $5,000 from Peabody.  The number of votes in the Facebook poll will comprise one third of the decision.  I need your votes, please!

  

To vote:  *You must vote from a regular computer- they do not have a mobile site.

Go to www.facebook.com/PeabodyEnergyLeaders

You must "Like" their Facebook page.  At the top of their page you will see a red box that says, "Vote here" and click on the vote button that says Illinois/Indiana Region under the photo.  Click on the button next to my name and then click VOTE at the bottom.  It may ask to you Login through Facebook to voting app.  Please click on the "Login through Facebook" button.  If you have successfully voted it will show you my ranking.  If you haven't voted the screen will still look the same and you should check the button by my name and hit VOTE again.  

As a thank you for voting, please visit my TpT account and download my Daily 5 Posters for FREE!  I will leave them as Free until June 1.  Thanks so much! :)

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Bubble Gum Day and Double O Words

Our countdown to the end of the year is still going strong!  Friday was bubble gum day and it was so stinking cute.  

We used the printables from The Teacher Wife to make self-portraits and to write the steps needed to blow a bubble (which I somehow failed to get a picture of). 

Each student got piece of Double Bubble to learn or practice blowing a bubble.  Some students already knew how and they tried to help friends understand just how to hold their mouths to blow a great bubble. It was so cute to hear students yell, "Wow- look at that bubble!"  After about 20 minutes of attempting to blow bubbles, we graphed whether or not we were able to blow a bubble.  We ended up with 9 students that could blow a bubble and 6 that could not.  It was a really cute activity- thanks so much for sharing it, Lindsey!  

Some students trying a different technique.  ;)

We had a lot of fun- Monday is lunch in the classroom, so I am off to the store to get a few healthy items to add to our lunch! :)

Our reading curriculum is Scott Foresman Reading Street and this week our story was Dot and Jabber and the Great Acorn Mystery.  The spelling words that went along with our story this week featured words with /oo/ like in book and moon.  For our Thursday review, I gave each student a blank copy of our spelling test page and told them we were going to take a practice test.  I asked them to tell me what our regular words had in common this week. (oo)  We talked about the two sounds we learned and how all 10 words had an oo in them.  Then I held up a box of Cheerios.  I asked students what letter a Cheerio looks like and, of course, they said an o.  I told them that when they were taking their practice test they could use Cheerios instead of writing the letter o in words.  

They thought this was really cool- and all 15 students spelling every word CORRECTLY!  

Wow!  It was a great review!!!  I let students eat their oo's when we were all finished.  Since we had so many Cheerios left, I also let them have a handful the next while we took our spelling test.  What is your favorite way to review for a spelling test?

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10 Day Countdown, Baby!

I.  Am.  So.  Excited!  We are down to our last few days of school and I'm pumped!  I blogged about such a fun idea to countdown the end of the year and we are finally ready to get it started.  My fellow first grade teacher and I decided on the list of ideas we wanted to use and I typed up a list of them.  Then we cut them apart, rolled them up and stuffed them inside of balloons.  We wrote the countdown number on each balloon and hung them along the top of our white boards.   I hope the kids totally freak out (in a good way) when they walk in and see this:

You can get them here if you are interested.  

Here is what we have planned:

10- Ink pen day.  *We purchased some super cool ink pens for students to use all day long.

9- 1st graders are so bright, we have to wear shades!  *We purchased some cute sunglasses for each student from the party favor aisle at Walmart.  We are taking a field trip this day, so students will get to wear them.  :)

8- Rearrange our room *Students will get to move their desks in any arrangement they want to.  This is going to be hard for me to give up control, so I hope they like it!

7- Mystery Reader *We have a local author who has agreed to come and visit our class.

6- Kickball Day  *Our classes will play a game of kickball against each other.

5- Nature Walk *We will arm students with baggies, magnifying glasses, clipboards, pencils, and iPods (for cameras) and let them explore.  It's always exciting to see things from their perspectives.

4-   Bubble Gum Day *Students will get to chew gum and blow bubbles.  We are using The Teacher Wife's super cute printables and having the students write the steps to blowing a bubble.  I'm really excited about these!  Click here to check out her cute downloads. 

3- Lunch in the classroom *Students will get to come to the classroom to enjoy extra snacks and a relaxing environment during lunch.  (This is a much sought after reward during the year.)

2-  Beach Day *We borrowed a bunch of beach towels for kids to sit on during the day and bought leis for each child.  We plan on rocking out to some Beach Boys music, too.

1- Extra recess day *This is the day when we have to clear out and clean up our classrooms.  So, we decided we would let students have two recesses and we would each monitor one.  That way, we each get 30 minutes in our classroom to work uninterrupted.  Yeah!

Last Day!  *Our school has a picnic day each year and students get to play on inflatables and hang out.  This year our students play in the morning and we have to fill up the afternoon with something... so movie day!

What are your final countdown plans???

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27 Days Left!

Are you kidding me?  I'm freaking out just a little right now because I just did my countdown to the last day of school and we only have 27 days left!  How is this even possible?  I still have so many things I want to do with my kiddos and now I don't know how I'll have time.  I just ordered our caterpillars to make sure that they arrive in enough time to watch the metamorphosis.
I normally do some kind of countdown activity with my kiddos once we get to 20 days left.  I found this cool idea from Jackie at Mrs. Gray's Pond on Pinterest.  (It's okay to roll your eyes every time I mention the P word- my husband always does! ha)  You put a fun activity in each balloon and then pop one each day for the last 20 days of school.  What's more fun than busting balloons?

Click here to go to Jackie's super cute blog

I think I'm going to try it with my kids this year.  I'm thinking about making it a behavior incentive since it seems like spring fever is in full force already.   Now I just have to come up with my 20 awesome ideas.  Anyone want to give me some recommendations?  Do you have any other cool end of the year traditions?Pin It