End of the Year COUNTDOWN

Are you counting down the days until summer?  Whether you are or not, most of our students are.  And I don’t think that’s a bad thing!  It’s not like we are counting down the days until we don’t see each other ever again.  We are counting down the days to celebrate a year well spent!  We’re ready to celebrate our accomplishments, become a year older, be a BIG kid, spend time with our families, rest our brains, and so much more!  Everyone has worked so hard all year long, so let’s celebrate!

When I visited Hope in Atlanta last week, we came up with a VERY exciting 10-day (or you can do less to make it work for you!) countdown to CELEBRATE the end of the year.  We’ve got ten days worth of activities that will keep your students excited and engaged until the very end!

Let’s look at the theme for each day.  Keep in mind, we have at least two activities for each day (and some days many more).  That doesn’t mean you have to do every single thing that we included.  That just means you have options!  Do as little or as much as you wish!!!  I’ve done a countdown for years.  Some days I do the theme for the entire day, and some days I just do something for 30 minutes.  We wanted to make sure you had enough to make it as simple or extravagant as you desire!

Students will study or review the four types of clouds.  They will become cloud investigators and creators!  Use cotton candy or cotton balls to create the four different types of clouds.  Students will also write creative stories about a cloud character!

For our experiment day, we tied in fairy tales.  Choose to focus on Snow White OR the Three Little Pigs… or do both!  For Snow White, students will conduct a poisonous apple experiment.  Then students will work as a team to build a sturdy house for the 3 Little Pigs that won’t blow down!

Have you ever made Lemonade in a Bag?  Oh my word, y’all.  It’s so delicious!  Students will follow a recipe to make lemonade in a bag and complete a How-To Writing piece.  Students will also become scientists with a simple Sink or Float experiment!

Emojis are all the rave right now!  Start off the day cracking the Emoji Riddles.  Then students create either a memory page or story using Emojis.  We’ve also got an Emoji Photo Booth and appreciation letters that can be sent to staff members at the school!

Bring on the bubble blowing!  As a class, students will blow bubbles and graph the results.  Students will also generate two true and two false statements about their graph.  We’ve also got a bubblegum writing craft that will have your students Bursting into Next Year!

Did your students complete the Lego Challenges from our B2S unit?  We got such great feedback that we just had to end the year with the Lego Games!  We’ve got ten challenges that promote cooperative learning and STEM!

This day is all about art!  Your class will complete the ever-so-popular candy melting experiment.  They will also become little artists!

One of my FAVORITE things to do at the end of the year is Pickle Day!  You can see what I have done with it before HERE.  Well, I’ve got some new activities to add to my Pickle Day Stash.  Students taste test three different types of pickles.  As a class, you will graph your favorite pick.  Then students will create a Pickled Portrait!

Ohmiword, y’all.  This is so cool.  Your students will make Solar SMORES!  Talk about becoming little engineers!!!!

Last, but certainly not least, students will Blast Off!  We’ve got a fun astronaut writing activity and a STEM project for your kiddos.  Students will blast their Balloon Rockets and reflect on their three launches.

It may seem like a lot, but think about even just choosing one activity from each day.  Think of the memories you’ll make with your students, the smiles that will glow on their little faces, and how you could end the year in the best, most engaging way possible.  Your students will NEVER forget the end of the year if they get to become scientists, artists, engineers, bubble blowers, taste testers, cloud viewers, and more!  Check out everything in this post by clicking HERE!