End of Year School Party Games

In December, I wrote a post detailing some of the party games I play on the last day of school with my class. I thought I'd re-post it below for my northern hemisphere friends who are finishing school and are ready for Summer now. I can't wait to feel the Summer heat again... boy has it been cold in Brisbane the last week!

Don't you just LOVE class parties? I do and there's a couple of games that I love to play each year and you only need a few simple materials: 

• balloons
• table tennis balls
• straws
• plastic plate, knife and fork
• dice
• bar of chocolate
• prizes for the winners!

All of these games I learned from another teacher so you may have seen them before. I play these games during our end-of-year party so the desks are moved to the side the room leaving a nice big (safe) playing space.

The first game is an oldie but a goodie and you only need balloons. Throw one up in the air and the kids have to try and stop it touching the floor. For an added challenge, throw in more ballons or they can only touch the balloon with a certain body part (e.g. elbows). Split the class in groups and see how long each group can keep it up for and the winning group receives a prize (Freddo frogs or other small chocolates/lollies are always favourites at the end of the year). This game can easily go for a few rounds!

Another game I tried out last year was table tennis ball races! I split the class into groups and stuck down masking tape for the start and end lines. Each group took their turn to line up (most on their hands and knees!) with a straw and a table tennis ball. On go, they have to blow through the straw to push the  ball past the finish line. They found this a real challenge, it's not as easy as it sounds! You could also use balloons from the previous activity instead of the table tennis balls. Of course, the winner of each race has to receive a little prize! We played a few rounds of this - they got better at blowing through the straws each time!

The final game is my fav by far! A chocolate eating competition! All you need is a yummy bar of chocolate, a plastic plate/knife/fork and 2 dice (forgot to take a photo of them!). Everyone sits in a circle with the chocolate on the plate with the knife and fork in the middle. Your kiddies take turns rolling the dice and if they roll a double they get to scoot into the middle and use the knife and fork to start cutting out a square of chocolate. Once they cut one out, they put down the knife and fork and pick up the square with their hands and eat it! Once they finish eating, they can start cutting again and eat as much chocolate as they can before someone else rolls a double. Once someone else rolls a double, they have to put down the knife and fork immediately and go back to their spot so the next person can start.

The kids LOVED this game last year! They didn't even get annoyed when they started to go in the middle and someone rolled a double straight away or if they *just* finished cutting out a piece and before they could pick it up someone rolled a double! It was all just so much fun they didn't mind at all! 

Also, these bubble wands are WONDERFUL!! I give them to the kids for their Christmas/end-of-year gift and take them out in the morning before it gets too hot. Seriously, they can play outside for an hour and complain when it's time to come inside!

 

 

What are your favourite party games? 

 

Summer Centers

I've just finished my first 'big' pack since October/November last year! Since then, I've been buying up a storm to keep my literacy and math centers going smoothly. This pack has taken me over 6 weeks to complete. I've just been making new centers when I haven't been able to find what I need in packs I've bought or downloaded. I need a lot too, because I differentiate my literacy centers. Depending on my kids needs (and how busy I am...) I have 2-3 levels of activities for Word Work, Spelling, Sight Words, Sentences and up to 5 different activities (for 5 different groups) for Write About Reading, which is my reading response center (although sometimes this is just 1 response activity that all groups complete based on their guided reading text). In the past I've done the Daily 5, but I thought my kids this year in Grade 1 needed more work on the basics. I'll do a post at some point to explain what the kids do in each one.

So this pack has 7 literacy and 7 math centers that I needed for some of the kids in my class. I apologise for my awful photos, I've been meaning to get a new camera for ages now, mine must be at least 8-9 years old now and it doesn't take great photos.

This is a sight word scramble activity, so a sight word literacy center. This was for my higher groups (they could choose whether or not to use the word guide). They chose two words to put in a sentence on the bottom (this sheet is already filled in and marked by my wonderful student teacher). My lower groups had a sight word scramble where the sight words were backed on a picture and cut up and they had to put them back together and so is self-correcting because they have the picture to help them. They needed that extra scaffold and the simpler sight words.

I had this Floating Through Sounds activity out last week for my two lower groups for a spelling center. They had to stretch out the sounds and write a letter/s in each box. It included some digraphs that needed to be placed in one box (e.g. ck, ph). It was a bit too hard for my lowest group :(
 

This Sundae Sound Sort has been another activity for my lowest group where they sort by medial vowel sound and write the word on the recording sheet my stretching them out. This one is for CVC words.

This activity I made for my middle groups as they need a little reinforcement with digraphs. They take the pegs (that have a sh, ch or th splash hot glued on them) and clip it on the card where they hear the sound (beginning, middle or end of the word).

All of the centers in this pack have an I Can chart to help students be independent at their centers. The pack comes in a zip file because it contains a U.S. spelling pack and a British spelling pack. Just delete the one you don't need. You can see I've printed the British spelling pack that has 'color' spelled 'colour'. Because most of my readers are American, I've used the American spelling of 'center' all though this post as well, even though we spell it 'centre' here in Australia! I've had some readers point out that I'm always spelling it wrong (centre) so I just thought I'd mention that we spell it differently here!
I've put this pack on TpT for 30% off for two days since I didn't have it ready for the big sale. I've only shown the preview of 8 of the 14 centers below since this post is so long. Check out the preview on TpT if you'd like for the rest.

 

 

If you've read down this far, thank you! Leave a comment below with your email address and I'll give it away to someone tonight.  

My son chose number 9! Congratulations Karyn! I'll email you now!

Simple Mother's Day Craft

Thanks to Pinterest, we were able to make this cute bookmarks for our mums this year. 

 

 Pinterest Link.

I didn't get any photos of ours but they turned out really cute! We backed them on pale blue card and laminated them.

We also made these cutie patootie flower bouquets using our hand prints! Our classroom looked so bright with these sitting on our desks! Super cheap and easy to make - simply trace 6 hand prints (my kiddies chose whether they wanted to mix colours or use all the same), cut out, roll up and sticky tape to a straw. Tape all 6 'stems' together and wrap in tissue paper with ribbon. We also glued down a heart. I saw this idea on Pinterest, but can't find the link :(

I've taken a photo of each student and one of the whole class holding their flowers. I'm sending off a Smilebox Sunday morning with our flower photos to wish our mum's a happy Mother's Day. 

I have to say y'all (I've always wanted to say that!), this was so simple and cheap to put together! I had all the items on hand and just bought some more ribbon in case I ran out. Simple but oh-so-cute!

To all the mum's out there, I hope you have a wonderful day! My son woke me up with breakfast in bed this morning, not realising that Mother's Day is not until Sunday! I'm looking forward to it again tomorrow!

FIve For Friday

Today I'm joining in with Five for Friday since I haven't posted for so long! These pics aren't from this week though, they are before we went on holidays. 

This photo was from quite a while ago. We were representing teen numbers in different ways - with bundling sticks, tent cards (which when pulled apart shows that 16 is 10 and 6) and with the 20 bead string of place value beads (made using a pipe cleaner and beads).
This was from the first week or two of school this year (you can get the Rosie's Hen pictures here).The kids sequenced the pictures and then wrote what happened during each part.

 

The string went around Rosie's leg and then the flour dropped on the fox's head and the fox ran to the next section. 

 

Rosie went under the bee hive and the fox went in the trailer and knocked the bee hive and the bees chased the fox away.

I took this idea from Sparkle Box. The kids had a lot of fun making the settings and writing labels for We're Going on a Bear Hunt.

Since we were learning about healthy animal habitats in Science, we had a go at making a simple butterfly habitat in Art (I got this idea from another teacher in my grade level). We made flowers for butterflies. The brown wool down the bottom is meant to be roots for the plant. The kids got to choose the materials they wanted to use. I like how the second one used sheer fabric and paper doilies for the butterfly. 

This one is just showing off some of my beanie babies! The kids are just loving the beanie baby reading strategies I'm using this year!

See what everyone else has been up to or link up yourself at Doodle Bugs.

-in Word Family Pack

Just a quick post today to show off my new pack - I really like this one! It is 70 pages covering the -in word family. This is about 20 pages more than the -at and -an word families I've already posted, but I'll be updating them soon to include the extras I've included in this pack. 

 

There are 17 Word Word activities in total with a good combination of "print in color and laminate" activities and "just photocopy" worksheets.

I have a few more in the works and then I'll be giving a set away. If you don't want to wait, you can find -in here (20% off at the moment), -at here and -an here. Once I update -at and -in with the 20 extra pages the price will go up slightly so you could grab them now and get the updates for free!

Differentiating for Special Needs

I've mentioned before that I've got 2 little sweeties in my room who have special needs. Both are intellectually impaired with one also having global development delay. His development in all areas is around that of a 2 - 2.5 year old. Obviously, everything we do has to be modified for both of them. I thought I'd start sharing some of the things they're doing in class in case you are looking for ideas for your own class. I'm also on the lookout for new activities, so please share! 

Today, I'm going to share some staples that we use almost every day. 

Bowls, beads and teddy counters. We use these for colour naming, sorting, matching etc. When naming colours, we also use non-verbal gestures (e.g. red is touching the chin). We use the beads for threading to develop our fine motor skills. We also use the bear counts for counting.

Here are some more things I've bought to develop their fine motor control. The smaller tweezers can be held with the pointer and thumb (like a pencil) to pick up poms, cotton balls or any other small manipulative. These are a little hard for my two to use at the moment though. The bigger animal tweezers are a little easier. We use the tweezers to move the manipulative from one spot to another and to drop into numbered cups to help with counting  (this is mostly done verbally since number recognition isn't there yet). We also attach pegs to the black tub and to the numbered cups for counting.

The sand trays are used for hiding pictures and objects in (so far this year we are learning the letter s and m) and for letter writing with our fingers. 

What do you do with kids who need to develop basic skills and concepts? I hope to share more of what we are doing soon.

B2S Classroom Photos

Yesterday I promised to show you photos of what my room looked like Friday for parents and kids to come in.

I am disappointed that my room is not finished but I guess that's the way the cookie crumbles sometimes. It is student ready and I'll probably move things around the first few weeks anyway so I'm not too concerned. 

You can basically see the whole room in this pic and the next one. This room is smaller than my last portable/demountable room and the odd shape makes it difficult to arrange things. Ignore the boxes of baggies on the front desk - I used them to hold spare supplies that the kids brought in on Friday. I don't do communal supplies (I do provide extras from my own money) but I don't pool the kids' supplies together. I want them to learn to take responsibility for their own belongings so they have their own. I store their extra pencils, erasers and glue in the baggies in the cupboard for them to get when they run out. The blue containers were on the kids stationery lists this year - they are their pencil cases. They fit into the tidy trays but most kids prefer to keep them on their desk. Because they are clear, they can see their pencils, erasers, glue etc to retrieve it quickly and there's no rummaging in desks searching for missing pencils!

I love the banner I made to add colour to that awful concertina door and my polka dot alphabet posters!  
 This is from the back looking towards the front.

 

Here's the little alcove next to the angled wall. I've used it to house 3 of my computers (one is connected to the interactive whiteboard). I've got my whole brain teaching rules here because it's the only bit of wall I've got in the room. On the left near the entrance is a glimpse of my small group area. 

Here's another view of the computers. Look! I've got some cupboards! A big bonus after 3 years without any storage space!

I've got my other two computers over the side of the room. I haven't dug out enough chapter books to fill the rotating rack on the side, but I should be able to find them early next week! The shelves hold a lot of my math manipulatives. On top I've got tubs of pencils, crayons and permanent markers so I can get ready making charts. I was thinking of having my Author in the Spotlight on top, hence the lamp. The tinted window looks into my office.

 

 These little chairs are next to the shelves and the door to go outside and the storeroom door.

 

This is a view of the back whole group and library area. I love the big book holder thing on the right hand side - it literally holds hundreds and hundreds of books (which I've organised alphabetically by author surname) and therefore saves tonnes of shelf space! I've still got boxes of book to unpack but I put out enough to get us started. I think I'll get rid of the box of cushions or find somewhere else to put it. I'll use the board for charts we make and a pocket chart.  The clock won't stay there!

Here's another view. The bookshelf holds some book boxes and tubs of scholastic reader type books.

 

I've got another group area down the front near the interactive whiteboard. I've put my rocking chair down here. 

Besides the interactive whiteboard, this this is the only whiteboard I've got. It is above the rocking chair. I'll probably change what is up the top (I can't write up there being only 5ft 1) but I wanted something up there to add some colour.

 

The blue tables are near the sliding door entrance. The pink frame from Target will hold notices and messages, the green rack has phonics readers, the pink tub on top holds our school student diaries (which are required to come to school each day). Underneath are tubs. I think the blue one will hold homework folders (our homework only comes in once a week). I'm not sure about the pink ones yet. I'm actually thinking now I'll get another two pinks ones for the other side...

 

This is on the other side of the yellow half wall divider above. You can see I'm missing a drawer :( I've still got labels to add and things to add on top. Through the left hand side of the purple wall is our shared kitchen (for myself and my teaching partner).

On the sliding doors I have added our word wall, mainly because there was nowhere else large enough to hold it! This is part of it.

Here is the start of my small group area. I've got a shelf on the left hand side that can't be seen to hold my small group supplies. Those posters are awful but we are required to have them in every class (they are QAR posters). Ignore the pink paper that is hanging outside the yellow border too, I'm waiting for some blue (and pink) scalloped borders to be delivered to put on the outside to make a double border, but they haven't arrived yet.

Like I said, my room is not finished and this is it until I return to school with the kids on Tuesday. I've got a whole storeroom of boxes of games, manipulatives, stationery and other things still to set up somewhere. I'm so sad it's not finished, but once I can get a security code for the building I'll be in on weekends finishing it off (I know I'll be WAY too tired after school for the first few weeks!). Even writing that, I know it probably won't happen until the Easter holidays!

I was very anxious when I left Friday knowing that the next time I set back in the room my new little firsties will be on their way! I'm so excited because they are all little cuties! I think I'll have a lovely class this year!

Sorry for another mammoth of a post! Good luck with your first week back!