End of Year Gifts

I'm I'm bad. I fell off the blogging wagon again. And this time I'm not going to promise that I will try to keep up because I now definitely know that it's a promise I can't keep. ><

However, I am back today to share what I'm doing for end of the year gifts this year! There are some lucky teachers out there that are already on their summer vacation. Lucky them! I'm on my last week (last day with kids is Thursday). So close yet so far! Anyways, this is my first and last year with this school (more about that in a different entry). I am going to miss my colleagues very much, especially the "lunch bunch" (as we call ourselves). Last year, I left my school with such short notice (two weeks before school started!) that I never gave my awesome colleagues there a good-bye gift. Well, this year I'm leaving with much more notice so I decided these well-deserved colleagues need a gift. After much research on Pinterest (love that site!) I came up with....

These cute beverage containers filled with some summer yums and relaxing time!

I found these awesome beverage containers in the "dollar" section of Target. (In quotes because these were $3 each not $1 each.) I literally then wandered around Target trying to find things to stuff into the containers. I had one of the containers open as my test one. After a good amount of wandering, I finally found everything I needed.

Below are the items in each container:

Missing: Mini hand sanitizer and an Eos lip balm.

The sunscreen, bug spray, and face masks went into the little blue bag before it went into the container. End result came out good! These containers are going to go to my grade-level team and the Kinder team (we all eat lunch together). 

My para (who is also the school librarian) also gets a similar gift except her goodies are inside this cute little tote bag (also found in the "dollar "section) AND she gets a mason jar with a straw (look for the pink!).

Now on to the students!

I typically buy my student books through Scholastic as their end of the year gift. I've always seen the idea of summer buckets floating around on Pinterest but never felt that it was totally necessary for my students. However, this year I'm teaching at a Title One school and I also had a good amount of money left to spend from the Parent Association so I decided that this would be the year to give it a try!

Got my buckets at the Dollar Tree.

And labeled them with a silver Sharpie. 

I'm actually not done with this particular project because I plan to assemble the buckets after school the day before school ends. It just seemed silly to assemble them at home and then have to carry 20 filled buckets to school. 

However, I did test assemble one at home just to see what it would look like...

Inside: spiral notebook, book from Scholastic, bubbles, crayons, glue stick, sunglasses
Not Pictured: pencils, eraser, stickers

You know how when you see one awesome idea and want to do it even though you already have an awesome idea? Well, I saw this super cute poem to the students on Ideas by Jivey so of course, I HAD to do it too! 

I printed the poem on half of cardstock, added a picture of me and that student, and laminated it. This will go in their report card envelope.

The kiddos are also going to get beach balls for signing on the last day of school.

And that's all folks! Hopefully you get some ideas of gifts for your colleagues and students from this post. I'd also love to hear what end of the year gifts you are giving this year! :D

End of Year Student Gift: Memory Books

Okay, tomorrow's the last day of school and I'm trying my best to not freak out! It's always hard to say goodbye. But I will see the kids again next year when they come visit me (always the best part). :)

So yesterday's post was on end of year gifts to parent volunteers. Today's post is on end of year gifts to students! I found this idea while blog surfing last year and took on the project with only like 1.5 months of school left. Boy, was it time consuming and stressful. But the results were great! This year, I  knew I was going to make it again for my students this year so I planned ahead! What are they, you ask? Memory books aka a monthly collection of student artwork and writing all bound together! Some of these artworks and writing pieces have been mentioned in my blog in the past so I will try to link back to them so you can get more details on what they did.

And here is the book!

Beginning of year and end of year picture along with the name tag used during field trips and the cubby tag.

August - first day of school writing. Be prepared to be amazed at their growth!

September - "I have never seen a ____" writing as a follow-up to one of our Language Arts reading.

October - all about bats! Bats writing, diagram, and craft.

November - My train craft and writing. (Find in TpT store here.)

December - gingerbread craft and poem. (Poem template found for free here.) 

January - New Year's resolution craft and writing and weather haiku.

February - Love is... 

March - Dr. Seuss picture taken from an app I got on my iphone plus two different St. Patrick theme related writings.

April - "Spring is..." poem and Earth Day craft and writing.

May - Mary Mack comic. (Oops! I just realized that this was done in April. Oh well!)

A different version of May in most books. Self-portrait with acrostic poem underneath and a writing piece on what they learned about butterflies.

June - Letters to the kindergarteners about first grade and to the future second grade teacher.

There are two more pages after. One page had some class photos on it. The last page is for autographs. I plan to give everyone pens (Ink Pen Day for our balloon countdown) and we will have some time to sign everyone's books and leave a little message.

I'm excited for everyone to get their books tomorrow! Last year, I had quite a fiasco on the last day of school due to pizza not being delivered to my classroom on time that I didn't have a chance for the kids to enjoy the books. This year, I'm just giving it to them first thing in the morning so we can spend some quality time with them before they go home. They are all laid out on their desks ready for the kids to enjoy. 

Can't wait! :)

P.S. There are more things I give the kids. But I guess you'll just have to come back tomorrow to find out about them. :)