Right now we are in the process of planning our end of the year countdown! Every year we do a Ballon Popping Countdown. If you have ever done one, you know that it is as much for the adults as it is for the kids! We hang 10 balloons up in the classroom and each one had a message in it. We pop one balloon each morning until the last day of school. Each message reveals a fun day or activity that we will be doing that day.
We didn’t want to skip it this year, so we decided to be creative. We plan on still popping a balloon each day. Stefanie and I have been listing ideas for the past few weeks and we are going to choose the best 10 to do during our last 10 days of distance learning.
We haven’t decided on all ten yet, but I will tell you the few that we have nailed down so far.
Flower Pinwheel
The first thing that we are going to do is something I saw on one of my friend’s Facebook wall. Flower Pinwheels! It made me so happy when I saw it, so I knew we needed to do it! We ordered a case of the flower pinwheels from Dollar Tree and we are going to personalize them for our students. Then on the first day of our countdown, we plan to Mapquest everyone’s address and stick them in their front yard! I think the kids will love them and it will make them feel loved and missed!
S’Mores Day
The second day is going to be S’Mores Day! When we drop off the flower ponwheels, we plan on leaving a paper lunch back with this cuties in them! We are going to label the outside of the bag indicating that they cannot open the bag until the correct balloon day! For S’Mores day, students can make the S’mores as a snack and then snuggle up and read in a blanket fort! What could be more fun??? We are going to have the kids share their photos with the class. If you are interested in snagging these FREE S’Mores Tags, you can get them in our Free Resource Library here.
Chopped Challenge/Trail Mix Challenge
Another fun idea is to do some sort of cooking/baking challenge. I have seen some teachers sending home a recipe and baking with their class on a Zoom or a Google Meet. While I ABSOLUTELY LOVE this idea, I decided to keep our cooking challenge more open…just in case some students don’t have access to all of the ingredients. I have come up with two other ideas that I think the kids will love. We just have to decide which one to go with:
- Chopped Challenge: Students will get their family members to choose 4 ingredients that they already have at their house. The student will them have to make a snack or a meal (up to the parent) using those ingredients. The parents can then determine whether or not students can use other ingredients as well to complete their food. Last steps: snap a picture to share and then enjoy!
- Trail Mix Challenge: Students will need to look around their kitchens to create a trail mix snack. Bonus: This is always a great thing to do at my own house because it lets us use up all the little bits left in all off the packages in our pantry. Last steps: snap a picture to share and then enjoy!
Summer Birthday Celebrations
Every year in June we pick a day to celebrate all of the summer birthdays! This is always a fun day. This year, I plan to sing happy birthday on video to each student who has a summer birthday. Students will be able to comment below the videos to wish their friends a happy birthday. Students will also be able to post pictures of them celebrating at their houses….ideas might include making signs, decorating, eating a cupcake, eating ice cream, etc.
We have a great idea for a Kindness Day and you can find that and more days of our countdown here. Enjoy!
Have a great weekend!
~Heather & Stefanie
