That's A Wrap: My Kindergarten Year

Yes I am still around but it has been a crazy year with a teaching partner out on medical leave and lots of littles who needed a program and activities to meet the standards and keep them engaged. It was a tough year but now that it is over I can catch my breath and share those last few days with you! How did I manage? I had lots of help from amazing parents, a principal who provided as much help as she could grab, and a few friends who came out of retirement to lend a hand when they could. It was a stressful, hot mess but I survived to tell the story. I even had one sub that the kids fell in love with that we are hoping to hire this year. That is another story for another time. Basically I learned a lot about myself and how hard I am capable of working when necessary. So here are some ideas I came up with to bring the year to a close.

We had a beach theme on our final day together and wrapped it up with "Finding Nemo" which I loved move than the kids. It is adorable. "Finding Dory" came out the day after school ended which was such a bummer. I made the sign that you see above for each student to hold and a parent snapped a picture. The frame is from Ikea and only cost a couple of dollars. It was cute to give this final shot to parents. 

I also made an autograph book with each child's picture on it with a line for a signature. The kids went nuts over this activity and had so much fun with it. I was shocked that they thought this was so great. I was going to give them each a beach ball but at a dollar each I really did not want to spend so much money on this. So if money is an issue try this idea! I posted the template on my FB page so go check it out.

We had a variety of centers related to our unit on ocean life that I created for that special day. This was ocean bingo and they loved it. I had them cover each creature with an glass gem. This is always a great unit to do at the end of the year. I made tons of games, centers, art activities, and little books to help them build knowledge. We watched some excellent You Tube videos and their are amazing non fiction books that are available too. I mainly used the Capstone series on ocean animals. We even learned how to draw these creatures using Whimsy Workshops units that I just adore. Please check them out in her store. 

We did a huge study on sea stars and on the last day they used magnifiers to find the sight word on each fish and record it. Then they got to color this in. Did you know that sea stars come in all colors of the rainbow? What is it about those magnifiers that make little students so excited? They loved this activity too!

Now I realize that if I was really on my game I would have filled this tub up with sand (staying with the beach theme) and had them dig for sight words. However, I really could not get sand that easily and decided popcorn would still make this activity challenging and fun for them. Picking up the sight words with tweezers made this activity twice as hard and a recording sheet was provided for those with more capability. There was no mess and students had a blast doing this center. 

 This activity was the favorite for the day. I grabbed a huge tub, filled it with water, and added light weight plastic balls with cvc words on them. Yup, no random activities on my watch! The more capable kids got sentences which I wrote using a permanent marker. I threw some in with the cvc words too. Students fished out the balls using little nets and read the words to me. They loved doing this but I did it outside my classroom door to avoid a possible water disaster. Now I want to buy a million of these plastic balls for all kinds of activities! Right?

Each student got a certificate of completion and a matching necklace which I created using beads from Dollar Tree. As I handed out each award I had a parent put this necklace around each child. This was the highlight of their day.

I would never have survived this year without the amazing parents who helped me. I was so lucky to have them. It made me realize that I had to ask for help and depend on others to run a successful program. I think we pulled it off... I hope so.

The room is packed up. It took about a week with many helping hands. I hugged 51 children goodbye, I talked about first grade, I bought all of them bubbles and best of all I hugged all the parents. I closed the door and walked away. Another year is over. It had so many challenges but it ended on a happy note. Goodbye kindergarten. I will be back in August. I will be rested and ready for the next group. My eyes were filled with tears. The end of each year is always bittersweet.