Minute-to-Win-it! {Last Day Fun}

Well, it's over. My first year in first grade is behind me. I loved every minute of it and I'm already excited at the possibilities for next year! The last day of school for the kiddos was Friday. It was an early release day, so we said our goodbyes at noon. We went out with a bang, of course ;-)

When I taught middle school, my students loved playing Minute to Win It on the last day of school. I thought my firsties would have fun doing it too if I simplified things a bit. I found some Minute to Win It clips on YouTube and, after lunch each day of the last week of school, we watched a couple of games and tried them out. Then, on Friday we played our hearts out! If you are not familiar with Minute to Win It, you have one minute to complete a deceptively difficult task. Here's a few pics of our favorite games. Please excuse my mess; I had started cleaning and packing my room.

#1 Use a tape measure, small ball, and a mini glass (errrr...a shot glass). Roll the ball down the measuring tape and into the glass to win. This was a crowd favorite!

#2 Use a stream of water to push a balloon into a basket. Tricky, tricky, but so much fun!

#3 Alternate paper plates and plastic cups to build a tower ten plates and ten cups high. 

#4 Use cheerios to build a tower ten cheerios high. On the game show, contestants stacked apples five high to win, but I forgot my apples at home. I made a substitution of cheerios because I had the cereal left over from the bird feeders we made earlier in the week. 

#5 Keep the balloon off the floor by tapping it back and forth between partners. It took 20 consecutive taps to win. 

There were more games, but I was too busy timing, giggling hysterically, and playing referee to take pics of them all. 

Last week I posted about a foil fish activity I was planning for the last week of school. Well, the fish turned out great! My partner teacher thought the fish looked like the fish in The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. So we combined the book, the foil art, and a related writing prompt into a lesson about individuality. 

The book is about a beautiful fish who finds friendship and happiness when he learns to share. The books teaches the value of being an individual. The fish in the story has distinctive shiny scales. 

Here's how our fish turned out:

 We used black sharpies and a guided draw to complete the outline of the fish, then brightly colored sharpies to fill in our fish.

 The kids really enjoyed completing this project!

It feels like today was the first day of summer vacation (even though I have a work day on Monday), so me and my little sharks hit the pool for a couple of hours and we have a zoo trip planned tomorrow.

Enjoy your summer vacation!

Lemonade Financial Literacy...and June Currently

I can't believe it is June already! My first year in first grade flew by. I have four and half school days left with my fabulous firsties and one teacher workday. Then, it's sleeping late, soaking up the sun, splashing in the pool, Vegas baby! and more. 

I have been consumed with end of the year testing for three weeks. But that's over. Thank goodness. I can breath again. In between testing kiddos, we did accomplish a few things. 

We reviewed money by making coin monsters. I called out an amount and the kiddos made a bug or monster using that amount of money. This was a lot of fun. This past week was all about money. In our financial literacy unit, we learned the difference between money as a gift and earned money (income). We decided to try to earn a little income by selling our artwork. 

I showed the class how to draw lemons and a glass of lemonade using a black crayon and white copy paper. Then they used water colors to complete their artwork. They picked a price and added it to the painting. The prices ranged from 1 cent to 99 cents. 

Then we sold the paintings to teachers in the building to raise money so we could make lemonade in class! 

Lemme tell ya - every single painting was sold! The teachers on my campus were more than happy to play along and purchase these adorable paintings. The kids were soooo proud when their artwork was bought and they got to deliver it to a teacher's room!

Needless to say, we made enough money to buy the ingredients to make fresh lemonade! Each child got to squeeze the juice out of three lemon wedges using a hand press. It took 10 lemons to get a cup of juice. Then we added 3/4 cup of sugar, 4 cups of water, and ice. It was the best lemonade I've ever tasted. For sure! And, all of the kids really loved it, except one little guy who says he's never liked lemonade. 

Then we wrote the recipe down to take home...on 2nd grade paper! Errr....notebook paper. My firsties got a kick out of writing on notebook paper instead of our first grade lined handwriting paper. 

 And now, my June CURRENTLY...

Listening - My hubs is watching Final Destination.

Loving - The last days of school are filled with writing and craftivities including a bird feeder, gift for Father's Day and this foil fish art. I'm going to draw the outline of the fish on sheets of foil. Then the kids will use a black Sharpie to add fins, gils, etc. and colorful Sharpies to color it in. It's just coloring, but it looks really cool and the marker strokes create texture in the foil. This peice will accompany writing titled, "If I were a fish..."

Thinking - I'll be in Vegas in July. The top of my wishlist was Britney Spears at the Hard Rock Hotel, but  it turns out she's on hiatus in July. Any recommendations???

Wanting - It seemed like a great idea when I said I'd spend a couple of hours three days of week working as an administrative assistant to my husband (financial advisor) or spend a couple of hours two days a week doing guided reading groups at my daughters' daycare, but now I'm like..."WHAT WERE YOU THINKING???!!!" Just sleep, work out, get some sun, and repeat!

Needing - Ha! My house is never clean anymore. Please don't visit unannounced. :-)