End the Year with a Bang!

Are your kids getting antsy? Are you tired of lesson planning? Do you have a countdown started already?  Here are a few ideas to end the school year with some fun! 

We have 2 countdown bulletin boards in our room. :) I put this flower bulletin board in my classroom titled "Blooming 1st Graders". I have 23 students, so we started our countdown at 23 days and are removing 1 flower at a time. My favorite countdown bulletin board "Popping Into 1st Grade" is outside my classroom so the whole school can countdown the days together. Each balloon has a simple activity in it that my class gets to do each day after we pop the balloon. This is of course if they can have good behavior til the end of school. If not, then we don't do that activity for the day :) Examples of activities include: read to another class, crazy craft day, shoes off for the day, write with markers, etc. 

Want a free copies of the activities to put in balloons and a cute little clown to blow up for your board? Click here to grab these FREE "Popping Into ___ Grade" bulletin board activities.

                     

 

As soon as it starts to get nice outside, which was very late April for Indiana this year, I like to get the kids outdoors more. We have reading time outside, sidewalk chalk writing, nature walks and observations, and do a variety of math activities.  I also put some of their favorite center games from the year back into their literacy center tubs.  My kids are aware that to do to these special learning activities, they must continue to make good choices each day. 

Here a few fun educational activities I do:

• Shaving cream writing (put a blob of shaving cream on their desk and let them write words)
• Sidewalk chalk (write down numbers, words, letters, etc. and have them try to throw a bean bag on whatever you say)
• Heads up 7up (have to read a sight words before they guess who picked them)
• Ping Pong Basketball Relay Race (2 kids run and grab a ping pong ball, read the word, then try to make it into the bucket, tag the next player) 
• Write "Summer Bucket Lists" 
• Make memory or autograph books
• Bowling (work on subtraction)
• Go Fish (divide class into smaller groups) 
• my class LOVES go fish so much that I made this sight word version

A few of my favorite activities that aren't educational :)

• End of the year pictures to send home
• Drip, Drip, Drop (like Duck, Duck, Goose but with water. Kids drip on kids until they want to tag someone, then they squeeze a bit more water on them and then run away!)

I hope that you have gotten a few ideas to make the end of your school year fun, while maintaining good behavior and an excitement to learn.