Five for Friday

Last Five for Friday of this school year because...Thursday was the last day of school! I have finally joined the "it's summer!" club! Don't have many pictures to share this week simply because I didn't really take many.

1. On Monday, we voted for our "fun awards". Last year, all the kids had strips of everyone's name and my friend, who was volunteering at that time, went around and gathered strips for each award category. Didn't have a friend volunteering this year so I opted for a paper "ballot". It seemed to work out pretty well.

2. On Tuesday, we had our awards ceremony. I used the awards made by Liz Fowler. The kids absolutely loved it!

3. Last week of school which also means clean, clean, clean! Sent the kids home with bags of stuff. But were also so happy to take it all home too! Along with everything that is in their desks, I also sent home a summer packet with suggested activities.

4. Fifth grade promotion was on the last day of school (Thursday). Our awesome fifth grade buddies were graduating so of course we had to make them cards to say congrats!

5. Once school was over on Thursday, it was Operation Clean and Pack Up the Classroom! I also have some news! I'm moving up to second grade next year and changing classrooms! Everyone looks at me crazy when I tell them I'm moving classrooms but I'm actually kind of excited! My new classroom's layout will allow me to take the spare Smartboard sitting in the Staff room so I'm super excited about that! Plus, I get to loop with some of my students. How exciting is that? Time to start following some second grade blogs and change my blog name?!?!

Anyways, I went off on a tangent. Back to Operation Clean and Pack Up the Classroom! My mom and brother came to help me out and we got quite a bit of stuff done! Spent 1.5 days packing and cleaning and this is what my classroom currently looks like.

Almost done! Still have some finishing touches left to do (all the crap on my desk and some other crap you don't see in the pictures) but I should be completely done and ready to turn in my keys on Monday. The classroom I'm moving to isn't ready for my move yet (retiring teacher leaving) so all I can do is box up my stuff and leave it in the hallway. My classroom will become a 1/2 combo classroom next year so I am also leaving a good amount of first grade stuff in there for the incoming teacher. 

But anyways, my last official work day is over and it's officially summer! How am I going to spend it? By starting off with a free seminar first thing in the morning! It's Rick Morris, who I have heard once and is a great speaker, so I'm looking forward to it. :)

Yay! Summer! :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. :)

Gifts Galore!

End of the school year also means appreciating and showering all our parent volunteers with gifts! So, what lovely gifts did we come up with this year? :)

Fingerprint vase, flowers, and card for the awesome art mom

Notepads for our noteworthy volunteers...weekly reading group parents!

The one with the pen set goes to a special mom who does reading groups and helps during art.

A marvelous tote bag for a marvelous room mom!

Last but not least...

Thank you cards for our field trip drivers! (made via Vistaprint)

What do YOU give your parent volunteers??? I would love to hear your ideas! :)

Two more days left! Aah!

Open House (Two Weeks Late)

Alright everyone, I know I am SUPER late with my Open House post. But Open House always makes me so proud of my students and even if it happened two weeks ago, I still want to share it with you all! :)

Guess who? 

Student self-portraits with acrostic poems using their first name underneath.

Volunteer appreciation corner. 

Popcorn bags to show that we're bursting with appreciation!

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Mary Mack Comics!

Showing off our visualizing skills!

Some rocky seashore dioramas along with reports in front.

Student desks! Quite a bit of stuff on there. Mostly artwork, our butterfly observation book, and memory book.

Close up of our artwork. Mainly all from our lessons with the fabulous art mom!

If you're wondering, the building is from out last art lesson focused on perspective. The kids really liked it!

Our hallway bulletin. 

Coffee filter butterflies with a writing piece on what we learned about butterflies.

I made a scavenger hunt paper to give to the students when they entered the classroom with their family so that they could show their parents EVERYTHING there is to show in the classroom. Believe me, there was a lot to see.

Before Open House, I told that kids that they would be the tour guides. All I was going to do was stand at the door and say hi and bye to them. They had to do the rest and they did an AWESOME job!!!

I have now decided that Open House is my favorite event of the school year! It's a lot of hard work, but seeing the kid so proud of their work make me so proud of them!

Ok, back to reality and finishing all my stuff for the last week of school! Look out for most posts on what I've been up to soon! :)

Five for Friday...Almost There!

Almost done with school! Last full week of school! Also our last Friday of school (school ends on a Thursday). :)

1. I have a confession, my planner this week was BLANK (except for the "Specials" class). Don't believe me? Here it is!

Yea okay. I'm sure you all know how hard it is to plan when the core curriculum is done and the kids also have absolutely no focus or attention span to really do much.  So I basically planned as we went! However, we still did Daily Five every day which kept some sort of structure in the classroom. Also had the 10 day balloon countdown going as a sort of incentive so that was helpful too.

2. Monday was Bubble Gum Day as part of our countdown. Of course, we can just get gum to chew for fun...have to put some sort of academic twist to it! So, I had the kids write instructions on how to blow a bubble with bubble gum as a little preview of some writing they will be doing in second grade.

Most of the kids don't know how to blow a bubble so it was pretty interesting watching them try, especially when the gum accidentally goes flying out of their mouth when they are blowing.

3. Tuesday was Math Day. We spent most of the day doing random math activities. For part of the day, I pulled out the math manipulatives and had them sort them out. They thought they were doing some math stuff. Little did they know, they were helping me with clean up. :)

4. So my photographer friend was here last week and she took pictures of the kids with their page in our published class book. I got them printed out in 8x8 form and put it up on our hallway bulletin board. This is always one of my favorite bulletins to put up because the kids absolutely love it! :)

We also made a video recording of us reading the book. Check it out below! :)

5. I know last week is going to be super hectic with it being all minimum days and having other activities with wrapping up the school year. So of course, the Father's day stuff had to be done this week. When my friend was here, she helped me making photo magnets of the kids using their school picture stickers that all teachers receive. They turned out pretty awesome!

Of course, it's not really a gift from the kids if the kids don't create something themselves, so I found this awesome freebie from Little Learner Toolbox and had the kids create little books from them. Then  I had the kids decorate a tie template so that we could put the gift(s) in a cute little gift bag.

Of course, there's other stuff to post about that happened this week. And even though Open House was two weeks ago, I still want to post about Open House. I will try to catch up on blog posts this weekend and schedule them to show up next week! :)

Only four more days left! I still find it so hard to believe! @@

Don't forget to link up!

June Currently!

Is it really June already?! Having the first day of the month on a weekend always throws me off, especially so close to the end of school. I almost forgot to pay my rent today! And I almost forgot about the June Currently! But thanks to Feedly and all my lovely blog subscriptions, I was reminded!

LISTENING - There seems to be a Star Wars craze going on right now. Last week when I went back to the parentals, my mom was watching Star Wars on tv. I'm back again this weekend and guess what my mom's watching? You guessed it, Star Wars.

LOVING - Oh man, this week has been the most STRESSFUL ever! On Tuesday, I had to report for jury duty. Bad lucky already. When I was in the jury assembly room waiting to find out my fate, my group got released for lunch and told to go back in the afternoon for the afternoon session while that other groups after me were released from jury duty. More bad luck. During the afternoon session, I tried to plead my case and get dismissed with a hardship. However, that didn't happen. I was told to fill out the questionnaire and write down my personal hardship and go back on Thursday. Worst bad luck ever. However, my luck changed on Thursday. I got excused from jury duty! Whew, thank goodness for that. I literally stressed out for almost a month (since I received my jury summons) thinking about what I would do if I had to be out for the rest of the school year for jury duty. What a relief!

THINKING - Man, it makes me a tad bit jealous that so many people are already out on summer vacation. But at the same time, I'm sort of excited about these last two weeks of school because we get to do some fun stuff since we're done with the core curriculum. Also somewhat stressful at the same time because I need to clear out the classroom and make sure to send everything home with the kiddos. Good thing I already sent home most of the stuff at Open House!

WANTING - I think we all understand this one. :)

NEEDING - I'm not a super light sleeper, but sunlight definitely gets in the way of my sleep. Even with the blinds closed, a small sliver of sunlight will wake me up. This means when summer rolls around and the sun rises earlier in the day, I also wake up much earlier. This past week I've woken up before my alarm which really doesn't suit me at all (I am NOT a morning person). Anyone has solutions for this? :)

3 VACAY ESSENTIALS - iPhone is needed for everything (pictures, navigation, finding good restaurants to go to). Seeing how I'm going to Asia for three weeks, sunscreen and sunglasses will be an essential too. Since becoming a teacher, my skin has become super sensitive to the sun and my face will burn really easily. I think it's because I spend too much time inside. Ha. :)

Don't forget to link up you're Currently too!