Favorite End of the Year Activities: Weekend Warriors Link Up

We all want our kiddos to leave us on the last day with the feeling that this was the BEST. YEAR. EVER. Special activities during the end of the year countdown will make the school year one the class will always remember!

 The Weekend Warriors are here this month with a linky party to share some really neat end of the year activities. I can't wait to visit all of the blogs to get some new ideas to round up for my own list of fun things to do!

I'm here to tell you about my favorite EOY craft, a few fun indoor and outdoor activities and some easy to throw together, last-minute things I like to do with my class! 

Since we have not started our end of the year celebration yet, I will be flashing back a little (or maybe a lot).

These activities have always been a HUGE hit!

Let's start with my all-time favorite end of the year project. This one is from a giant leap backward in time!
This is what we made one year when I taught first grade:

 It's a class keepsake pillowcase!

 Every child brought in a brand new pillowcase. I created the class photo, poem and student names template and printed them on iron-on transfer sheets. Parent helpers did the ironing.

 Each student added their fabric paint thumbprint.

 The poem says:

Now I lay me down to sleep,

I count these thumbprints instead of sheep. 

And always remember the friends I made,

In Mrs. Moriconi's first grade.

I loved this class so much! :)
 The firsties on my pillow are college kids now. 
Wow! Stop that clock!

Now for some activities...

Here in Michigan, we make outdoor plans but always have an inside plan B in case we get rained out.

I'll start with some OUTDOOR FUN!

A favorite on a hot sunny day is a water balloon toss. 

 I am SO bad at tying balloons so we call on parents to come in to fill them. We pile the balloons up outside in big party tubs.

 Partners start close together and with each toss take a step backward until SPLAT! Afterward, we fill the tubs with water and let the kiddos go crazy with those big dollar store water squirter tubes. The teachers run for cover!

Some years, we schedule the ice cream truck to stop at the playground during our second grade picnic. 
 Kona Ice is usually a favorite around here.

 

Speaking of picnics, this year it will be a hot dog cookout!
 On the menu will be chips, watermelon, beans, brownies for dessert and lemonade. YUMMY!
We are going to have a lemonade tasting day and use this cute packet by my friend Aimee at Primarily Speaking.

I am so excited to try out these fun learning activities with my class!

 We do try to keep the last days mostly academic!

INSIDE, we always have a movie day. While the students are enjoying the show, the teachers get things like printing report cards done!
 It's a lifesaver! 

The children go to a classroom of their choice. We open four theaters, each showing a different full-length feature. 
We made tickets for the kids so we can still keep a normal class size during this time. 
Everyone enjoys some popcorn, Sprite and a large movie sized candy pack.

On the second to last day, we clean everything including the desks!  

To make our shaving cream fun more academic, I call out spelling words, math problems or a category of things for the students to write or doodle. 

Shaving cream must be a directed activity or we end up with more of a mess than when we started!

After the desks are cleaned, they get stacked and pushed to the outer walls.

 This is the perfect set up for LAST DAY fun!

One of the many things we do is to make a giant circle and play a round of hot potato and pass the beach towel! 

 When the music stops, the person with the towel is out. 
They step to the outside of the circle and watch the rest of the game!
 No one even minds being out! 

Then, we have a hula hoop contest!

Before we say goodbye with HUGS or HIGH FIVES, we take a trip down memory lane with a slide show of photos from the year. 
Then, we Go Noodle to HAPPY while dismissals are called so the teacher doesn't cry!! 
I do anyway. Every year.

This year we have added some new festivities because... believe it or not... it is MAP testing week. So, we are keeping the activities shorter, and easy to plan and manage.
I am calling it our end of the year extravaganza!

On Monday, the students are invited to bring in their electronic devices from home. On that day, some siblings are coming to spend the day in our room. They earned a reward ticket to do so! 

 On Tuesday, we will sign beach balls and then play with them outside. If the yearbooks are here, we will sign them on this day too.

Wednesday is bubble day. I picked up some one dollar bubble wands from Walmart. We are also letting the students CHEW GUM IN CLASS!!! They are getting Blow Pops!

Thursday is a campout read-in. The students spread out blankets and read by flashlight. 

The others I told you about but switcharoo day is when the students rotate through all 4 of the second grade rooms and we each do a different activity like a game, craft or experiment. They love having a chance to see another room and mingle with other friends. We number the students 1-4 and assign a number to each room.

After I made this schedule, we decided on board game day instead of switcharoo. 
This involves NO planning on our part, so it's perfect!  

 I'm also thinking of making glitter dough with the kids! Call me crazy... but it's a tradition we ran out of time to do this year.

This would be before cleaning time and then the mess would just... disappear! 
The custodians will never know. Ha!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! I hope you got a few new ideas here to use or Pin to save! 
Now, head on over to see what the rest of my Warrior friends are sharing on their blogs.

Please link up with us or leave a comment here with your favorite activity too!

:)

An InLinkz Link-up

Memorial Day Classroom Projects and Activities!

The grand finale this week was learning about the true meaning of Memorial Day and showing our patriotism! We listened to patriotic songs, watched  educational videos, read a Scholastic News Magazine about Betsy Ross and made these windsocks!

To make the windsock project, just take one large piece of construction and glue a half sheet on top of it. My teaching partner traced some stars on a master and photocopied them. To make it more educational, I whipped up some vocabulary words, so we also had a good lesson on these terms. 

Before rolling and stapling, we glued some streamers to the back. They went home with a piece of yarn attached at the top on opposite sides of the tube. 

Maybe you can use this project idea for Tuesday or even save it in your files or Pinterest Board for next year!

 You can click {here} to download and print the words if you like.

 

Mother's Day Gifts: Gettin' Scrappy!

It's always such a good feeling to have a big project done and sent home! Today we put the finishing touches on our Mother's Day crafts! The kiddos absolutely loved making their lunch bag scrapbooks and I have to say it all went VERY well! Every class in our second grade did this project but each teacher picked out different papers and scrappy doodads. All of them are ADORABLE! Come take a peek and see how they turned out!

 It's not likely that you can whip this up in a day, but if you are on the lookout for a NEW Mother's Day gift idea for next year, you may want to save this post or Pin some images to your boards! This post may also be helpful to my friends who have purchased this item as you start your scrappin' too!

The first step was to get the bags folded ahead of time. This year, I took a shortcut and stapled the books instead of tying the spine with ribbon. Then, I photocopied the patterns onto the12 x 12 paper (trimmed to letter size). I saved the extra scraps for inside recess projects!

I let the students select all of their papers. We did this one at a time while the rest of the class was working on writing. I set the papers up in piles according to color scheme so they would not be completely mismatched and clashy. 

I did not cut out a single pattern this year. The kiddos did it all themselves. They did a great job staying on the lines.

We did this project in baby steps throughout the week so I could keep teaching. It was a nice pace and did not disrupt our day much at all.

As each piece was cut, we just slipped it into a baggie. The baggies stayed on the students' desks all week until assembly day. 

Once everything was cut out, we started with designing the cover. I really like the way some students used rainbow lettering. It balanced out any creatively crazy color choices they made along the way!

Then we had a mini-lesson! 

Just a dot, not a lot! 

We started gluing down our background frames and all of the white papers from the baggie onto the frames. It worked out great to do this whole class with step by step directions.

I had put together an example of my own at the same time so I could show the students what each piece should look like. 

The next day, we worked on the four pull out pocket pages. The kiddos wrote the sweetest things about their mom and drew some really cute pictures of special times together. She is going to LOVE these pages. I'm so glad I added them this year! 

My sweet retired friend offered to help in the classroom! She helped supervise the students' selection of decorating items so they didn't get carried away and add too much. I kept teaching and the students kept working until it was their turn. We picked sticks to be fair!

I am just thrilled with how stinkin' cute they turned out! The kids were just beaming with pride!

In keeping with the lunch bag theme, we added flower cut-outs to the front of a larger brown bag to use as a gift bag.

There is a poem and directions sheet for mom so she knows how to finish the scrapbook at home. That went in the bag too. 

I just folded over the top and stapled it. 

Piece of cake!

 Whenever I do a project like this I always try to make a note to self to make it even better...The one thing I might have changed was my choice in papers. They were a little BUSY for my taste. Next year, I will try solid brights or chevron. Fewer choices might make paper selection faster and simpler too.

If you like, you can find the scrapbook project and all of the patterns to make one {here}.

 I hope you enjoyed this little photo tutorial of our project in the making!

 It was a big hit in the classroom.

 I think it will be on Mother's Day too!

:)

Open House Ideas for Teachers: Weekend Warriors

Are you getting ready for an end-of-the-year open house? Maybe your school, like mine, welcomes parents with a back to school night in the fall. No matter when your open house is, this linky is for YOU! The Weekend Warriors are joining together this month to bring you all sorts of helpful and creative ideas to make your parent night *SPECTACULAR*! 

 I am here to share lots of ideas that I hope you can use for either a fall OR end of the year parent night. Be sure to PIN these to your Pinterest board and SAVE these ideas for whenever you need them! You can find all of the links to the freebies and projects shown here at the end of the post!

You're having company! Of course, you want your classroom to be as tidy, organized, colorful and cheerful as possible. Create a welcoming environment and a great first impression! It sets the stage for a wonderful evening! Try turning on a few lamps for mood lighting or getting a fragrance plug-in to make your room feel more like a home. 

Before parents enter the classroom, the first thing they may see is a bulletin board in the hallway or outside of your room.
 Here are two cute and very easy to prep ideas! 

Students might write about a few favorite things they learned during the year! 

For a back to school bulletin board, have students write a recipe for a successful year! 

 Once visitors arrive at your classroom, invite them in with a welcome sign! 

On a table near the door, have handouts, sign up sheets and other important things like donation requests :) available. I copy these signs on bright cardstock and display them on an easel stand.

Avoid awkward moments for yourself and parents that arrive early by giving them something to do! Parents can write down their hopes for the year, complete a Thinking Map about their child, or make a happy note or bookmark to give them. 

On your table or at the student desks, you may want to have out some memory booklets from current students or former students. In the past, I have had a few students from the previous year make an extra copy to have out at open house in the fall. Parents will love to see the expectation for work quality by exiting students and it also gives them a peek at the fun times ahead!

Another way to give parents a peek at the year is to have a photo slide show running on the SMART Board as parents enter!

  I set out classroom photo albums of years past too so parents get a sense of my teaching style and the activities I like to plan. I even decorate one of these All About Me Tee posters from Really Good Stuff so they can get to know the teacher better too!

Open house is the time for kiddos to SHINE! Want a creative way to showcase student work at parent night? 

 Have your students make a pizza box portfolio!

 Inside these boxes are all of the special projects and work samples that my students are very proud of! The boxes are a super keepsake that parents just LOVE! 

 If you are one of the lucky teachers (HA!) that gets to give an informational presentation, you might like the help of a PowerPoint to display on your SMART Board. Sometimes the excitement of it all can cause an enormous mental block, so this is a nice way to summarize information in a very professional way. 

With a PowerPoint, it is also easy to print handouts for parents that were unable to attend the session. This file is EDITABLE, so you can type in what you need to include. I already typed in a bunch of ideas in the slides to get you started! 

 Even though you are organized and all set with super ideas, you might still get the open house jitters especially if you have to SPEAK (choke)!!! The SINGLE most important thing to remember during any kind of parent night is to just be wonderful YOU- knowlegeable, enthusiastic, genuine and sincere.

Everyone loves a gift! At the end of your evening, send your visitors home with a small token of your appreciation. You can search my Pinterest board for some cute ideas for things like a bag of Pop Rocks or popcorn to thank them for "popping in". 

 But why not also send something along that will reinforce the learning in your classroom or for use over the summer??? Consider sending practice kits home with parents at open house. You can prep some game boards, flash cards, sight word lists and all sorts of goodies and just bag them up! Throw in a fun Smencil, a cute pencil sharpener, a book, a bookmark, some dice, game markers and you have a SUPER thank you gift!

Teachers Pay Teachers, Teachers Notebook and Educents are great places to find materials for your grade level. Check out places like Geddes or Oriental Trading Company for fun trinkets for your take home bags! I guarantee they will be a big hit!

I like to give my parents a little business card or fridge magnet with my classroom phone number and email so they can easily find my info when they need to contact me. 

I made these cute pencil shaped business cards from clipart by Creative Clips and just typed in my contact info. You can design your own cute cards at Vistaprint. 

  Wrap up the evening and leave your guests with something to think about like a special quote, a touching poem or... a bit of humor! 
 I'm sure you've seen this funny before...

SMILES!
 So when your parent night comes around, KEEP CALM and HAVE FUN! I always have to remind myself that parents don't really care so much about the fluff, or the specifics of the curriculum as much as they want to leave with the feeling that their child will be or has been loved, challenged and excited about school! 

    Thanks a bunch for stopping by for this edition of the Weekend Warriors! I hope that you found some new ideas here to make your open house a *night to remember*! 

Links to Resources

 You can find all of the printables to make a Pizza Box Portfolio {here}.

You can find The Write Stuff pencil craftivity by A Cupcake for the Teacher {here}.
Download Cooking up a Great Year by Miss Kindergarten Love {here}.
The parent wishes signs and slips from Funky First Grade Fun can be found {here}.
Grab my free welcome sign {here}!
  Open House table signs freebies are {here}!
You can download the Back to School Night PowerPoint presentation {here}!
 Free photo DVD covers can be downloaded {here}.
My blank bookmark patterns are {here}.
Pop Rocks treat signs from Cupcake Cutiees Party can be purchased {here}.
All About Me posters are available {here}.

Mother's Day Project! The Best Gift EVER!

Hey friends! What are you all doing for Mother's Day gifts this year? For the past two years, I took a break from my favorite project to try out a few new ideas. They turned out SUPER cute but somehow, they just did not have that sweet *I made this special project for you by myself and Mom, you're going to CRY when you see it * feeling. You know what I mean? So this year, I'm going back to the one I love best! 

Here's a little history behind my all-time favorite Mother's Day gift:

When my son was in second grade, he took ME to work at HIS school. I was also in second grade! My child's amazing teacher, my scrapbookin' friend, Kathy, suggested we make a lunch bag book for our Mother's Day craft. She had seen them in a magazine and fallen in love. I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about... but I went with it!

We had no patterns, NO CLUE, no materials and so the creativity began! Together, we came up with some sweet sentiments about moms, rounded up cardstock papers, scrounged around for ribbon scraps and tried making an example. After some trial and error, we had created an adorable project and the students LOVED it! 

Because I knew what I would be getting from my child as a gift, I worried that I might have to practice my excitement over it for Mother's Day. They managed to keep it a secret from me though, so I never saw the finshed project until that special day. He was so proud to give me that little book that fit perfectly in his tiny hands. It was so sweet!

Of all of the gifts my child ever brought home from school, my very own, made with love, lunchbag scrapbook is my most cherished. Why? Because we finished it together at home and made another happy memory. 

In it are all of my favorite reminders of him at age 7. 

AWWW!

I have to confess that I'm not into scrapbooking at all. I never had the time or patience for that sort of thing. I never made even one for my child. It sure was easy enough for me to add my favorite photos of the two of us like this one from our amazing trip to Mexico.

The bag book has a few journaling cards inside the pockets. I jotted down some cute things that we used to say to each other like I love you more than you love me! Somehow, I thought I'd always remember those little things, but time makes you forget. There are all sorts of other things in there too like zoo passes, movie tickets, and more reminders of our fun times together. 

I still love to look back at my darling little scrapbook every once in a while. I had it displayed on a small easel for many years, but recently packed it away for fear that something might happen to it in one of my wild cleaning frenzies.

Kathy is now happily retired, but I have continued our lunch bag scrapbook tradition with lots of classes over the last 10 years. I even made one for my OWN mom! 

Thanks to technology, I was able to redesign the patterns, and add instructions so other teachers can enjoy making it with their kiddos too.

 It is now new and improved and cuter than ever in 2015!

 I hope you like it too!

It breaks my heart knowing that some kiddos we teach do not have a mom to celebrate with on Mother's Day. The file also includes alternate pages so those children are able to participate and make a book for their Grandma or an aunt.

This  Mother's Day Lunch Bag Scrapbook was one of my first items available at Teachers Pay Teachers! Many sweet teachers have written to share how much their students and parents loved it! That makes my heart SO happy!

 If you have already purchased this craft, be sure to go back to download the *new version* under your purchases. It now includes pull out tabs with adorable fill in the blank pages and cards for the kiddos to illustrate! There are new tracer patterns that can be photocopied too to make prep even easier than ever! 

I can't wait to get started on this project with my class next week! I plan to share some photos of our beautiful masterpieces as we complete them!

 This year, I am collecting 2 dollars from each student. I bought some really pretty things to decorate them with that the Moms will adore. The kiddos have to do some chores to help out and earn the money. Yes, there is a note for that in the file as well!

A Little Giveaway

If you are still on the fence about a project for  Mother's Day, you might like to try this scrapbook keepsake out. You may even like to have it for your own children to make for Grandma! Just leave me a comment with your email and next week, I'll choose THREE to try it FREE! 

Have a great finish to your week! Set a reminder and be sure to check back here on Saturday and Sunday! There will be some super duper posts from the Weekend Warriors bloggers and a few other surprises you won't want to miss!

Disclosure:
The winners for this little giveaway were chosen very scientifically by the king of randomness:

Congratulations to Suzy, Lori and Hannah! You won the Mother' Day craft! Check your emails ladies! 

:)