End of the Year Fun!

So, this post should have come in several smaller segments last week.... but between state testing celebration {surprising students with a trip to the movie theater to see Frozen}, student talent show {complete with teachers movin' and groovin' in granny get-ups}, water games, and farewells, time to blog went by the wayside. To those of you already on break, maybe you'll find a few ideas to pin for later, and to those of you still in school, God's speed for summer and hopefully you'll find an idea or two that you can use!

First, part of our morning work came from the gals at Pinkadots Elementary. We made 4th Grade Memory books, they turned out great! I love the student's suggestion of school starting at 10 a.m. I could be on board with that idea! 

The fourth grade staff put together a water day for the students to do something fun for the end of the year. Unfortunately a thunderstorm delayed it until the last day of school. My station was a play on 'duck, duck, goose' with 'drip, drip, dunk'. 10 minutes was not nearly long enough, the students had a blast at my station. Each of the rotations was fun from water cup relays, to wet shirt relays, the kiddos were good and wet by the time it was all said and done.

The students voted on awards for each of their classmates. The certificates from Joanne at Head Over Heels for Teaching, were terrific. I loved that she included a voting sheet, made life much easier for me when tabulating!

I gave the students a little something along with their compiled time capsules. We used Fourth and Ten's Back to School pack for this. {Sorry I forgot to get a picture of that in the craziness!}

During the last week we made self portraits about what we were looking forward to most: one lens had ideas for summer and the other for next year. I found the idea at Third Grade Love but free handed the glasses so I could photocopy them easier. 

Before the last farewell, we got rid of some energy doing "Minute to Win It" games. So much fun! I found several games on Pinterest, and I chose just a few to do. I think that next year, I'm going to ask for some of the supplies at back to school time and make a 'minute to win it bucket' to store the supplies in and have on hand. The students had a blast!

Picking up noodles with a piece of spaghetti in your mouth, no hands.

Balancing six dice on a popsicle stick that's in your mouth.

Petroleum jelly on your nose, relay to see who can get the most cotton balls 8-10' away. Can only use your nose to pick up the cotton.

My favorite. Place a cookie on your face, and using only facial movements, no hands, get the cookie from the top of your face to your mouth.

It was a fun end to the school year!

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Easy Mother's Day Art Project

In case you're needing something last minute to do, here is a quick and easy project. We completed it last week in my classroom and my kiddos loved it, and I loved the end result!

I found this idea from Second Grade Sparkle. I was amazed that so many of my students had never used water colors before. Once they got they got the hang of it, my students were super engaged and loved the whole process.

Basically, students wrote several sentences about their mother, grandmother, aunt, or other special gal in their life. They then made their words into the flowers or background of their pictures. Water color and a little ink later and the results were fabulous!

I don't know about you, but I love these creations! Hope you have a fabulous week and fun celebrating all the great women in your life!

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Art Display, End of the Quarter, & Giveaway!!

While the last few days have looked something a little more like this of late:

I'm loving how my graduate midterms and the end of the first 9 weeks are coinciding together... I currently have no life. I'm also halfway through this semesters worth of classes and will be down to just one in the spring, hopefully by then, I can get the mass amount of pictures from my camera, to the computer to blog; as well as catch up on lots of blog reading!

Aside from the rather bleak view of grad work and grades, our hallways have livened up greatly thanks to our wonderful art teacher. Check out this display!

I love how this little girl wrote that "Art makes my life more inspiring"

Great tag line "Art is Hands-On...and Touches our Life!"

Such a fun display! 

Speaking of fun things. My blogging buddy Jessica from I {Heart} Recess, is celebrating a year of blogging with a huge giveaway that celebrates each month of the year and then some! Click the picture to check it out and enter to win! :)

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Skeleton Craftiness!

Let me premise this little project by saying...

A) You should be sure your students have a firm understanding of cursive.
      I discovered several of my kiddos are not... and cursive just looks cooler.

B) Do not attempt on a day that also has a field trip.
      My kiddos were filled with several ounces more of excitement.

C) Allow more time than you may think.

D. Enjoy a pretty cute Halloween-esk craft, with some symmetry and fun!

Start with a piece of white construction paper (to construct the main trunk of the body). I cut mine so that it would be smaller than the black construction paper background. I used the piece cut off for the other assorted body parts that could be added later.

Then, in cursive write your name ALONG the fold.  I suppose, you could do it in print... I thought cursive added a little something. When I bubbled the letters in the next step I added my dot and crossing of the "t". For the letters that hang low...I just had students drawl them up high, as seen in the example above.

 

I quickly bubbled out the letters. Drawing out the same letters only a quarter to a half inch further out worked well. I made sure that the dot to my "i" was connected to the base. 

 

Next part is TRICKY!  You want to cut out the letters, but you also want to leave some of the letters attached to the fold. You can see the a little on the bottom of the "c" and you can tell where I could leave part of the "h" easily connected.

It's easier to see here where things were connected in this picture. Cutting above the letter is easier... I helped several students with the below part (the part connected to the fold). Making the cuttings between letters and in between letters (like inside the "s") really add a lot to the skeleton body. 

Then fold out! I thought my "C's" made for good feet, and the "t's" looked like arms, so I didn't add a whole lot to my end product.

You can see my set up here. All I did was add my head and glue it on my black paper. Faces could be added to the skeleton by cutting them out or drawing them on.



 The following our some of our finished products. For the tag line I said "No Bones About It: 4th Grade is Great!"

A Halloweenish and unique display. The symmetry adds a lot, and the patterns that can be seen in the names is fun!

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