Fun Activities for the End of the Year: Life Size Games!

Sorry for the delays in posting - I have so much to share that I hope to catch you up on this summer!  Today, I'll focus on one of our "Friday Club" activities we're doing the last nine weeks. My 3rd grade students have been doing a "Games" club while my 4th and 5th grade students have a "Mystery" club that has included Breakout activities as well as yesterday, a "Life Size" Clue game.

I am loving these "life size" games!  I found some ideas and ran with them for popular board games.  I have an old Twister game in the Makerspace my kids LOVE.  In fact, they loved it so much the spinner pieces broke and after repairing multiple times, a crucial part got lost.  So, I created cards in lieu of the spinner because they were begging to play again!  You can find these {here}.  The biggest problem with Twister, though, is that only a certain number of students can play at a time which of course leads to a bit of chaos and volume as potential players impatiently await their turn!  So, a solution was to still use our mat, as well as borrow colored dots in the same colors from the P.E. teacher.  We set the mat out and continued the pattern in a large area so all students could play!

Yesterday, my 4th and 5th grade club members played a school version I created of "Life Size" Clue.  Students were divided up between detectives and suspects.  Suspects wore a nametag that identified them (Principal Mustard, Chef Peacock, etc) and each got 3 cards to hold.  They then rotated themselves through the marked rooms around the library as detectives asked them questions.  The only catch was they could only ask yes/no questions.  For example:
"Chef Peacock - did it happen in the library?"
(Chef Peacock looks at his/her cards.  If he has a library card, he can answer "no".  If he does NOT have the card, he answers "I don't know" which tells the detective he does not have that card).

I had some very intuitive students ask questions like "Chef Peacock, did Miss Scarlett do it in the Kitchen with a stinky sock?" - which gave them 3 chances to find out an answer!  If the suspect had one of those cards, they had to show it to them.

The kids had a great time, everyone was involved (I was worried the "suspects" would get bored but they did not and for our 2nd round we had suspects and detectives change places because everyone wanted to be a suspect!)

Next week, I'll be playing a "Life Size" version of "Guess Who."  We'll see if they ask to play Clue again - they seemed to really enjoy it! If you'd like to see more about Clue, check it out {here} in my TPT store and TN store {here} (who, by the way, are both having sales next week!).  You can check out Guess Who by clicking {here} on Google Drive.  I wrote out the directions but haven't played it yet so it might end up getting edited!

I hope you're having fun as your year is winding down, but of course, I can see using these games any time of the year!  I hope to share more of what's been going on this year with you soon, including my love affair with Breakout!

Virginia Bloggers Blog Hop: Spring Edition!

Welcome to Virginia!

                     Virginia Bloggers Appreciate Y-O-U!!

A lovely group of Virginia bloggers would like to show our appreciation of you by extending a bit of southern hospitality.  You can follow along the blog hop to visit 10+ Virginia teacher blogs for terrific teaching tips and fun freebies to help get through the last couple of weeks before summer break.  Thanks to Andrea over at Reading Towards the Stars for the button! :)

The end of the year always brings review and end of year tests.  One thing my grade level does this time of year is a China/Egypt rotation.  It's one of my favorite units and there's so much to cover about these ancient civilizations!  So, each teacher takes an idea or concept and teaches it in a 25 minute block.  Each class rotates to each of our five teachers.  To motivate students to behave, listen, and participate in these fun activities (because face it, at this point in the year, they are "done"), we usually gave each an index card with their name on it and each teacher stamps it as they go out the door to the next classroom.

I am the teacher who, always always always forgets to do those darn index cards until the kids are lined up to start!  So, one thing I offered to do for my team this year was to make a passport for each child.  We could have it duplo'ed and it would be something more than an index card that at one point or another, got lost or left in another classroom.  I could add some cute clipart to it and make it more "fun" for the kids!

So, here is my Egypt/China one:  (pretend it's copied double sided)

Now, everyone doesn't do Egypt/China like good ol' VA (or teach 2nd grade).  So I made a "generic version" that we'll use at other times of the year.  This is the one I'd like to share with you.  While you are more than welcome to download the Egypt/China, you might be more interested in this one!

Knowing that each school is different with different numbers, the second page ("stamp page") varies, with anywhere from four to eight stars for stamps, depending on your number of rotations/classes. 

I hope you're able to use this for your reviews!  It could also be used for stations within your classroom as well.  Really, the possibilities are endless :)  I hope you enjoy and find it useful!

Be sure to hop on over to the next blogger for the next freebie/tip! :)

 

Things to Come, Pronouns, and a Freebie!

Soooo.....little hint of things to come.  Please stop by on the 14th and 18th for special blog hops!

We're getting ready to start our last unit for the year, which is pronouns.  Obviously, we've done this around Christmastime, since everything in my folder seems to be holiday-related!  So, I felt that although kids love reindeer and Santa, it might be best to go with another theme.  

I've recently fell in love with task cards and the unlimited possibilities you could do with these - write the room, SCOOT, centers, small groups, to mention a few.  

So, knowing I needed something a little less seasonal for pronouns, I created task cards where students have to apply what they know about task cards, as well as have a cute little story about going to camp!

Click on the pictures below to see more.

Annnndddd....here is the other thing I created this weekend.  I always have my class do a "top 10" that I can post for next year's kiddos at Open House.  It's an old template from Mailbox that frankly, was kind of plain looking.  The last few years, my kids also had trouble either clarifying what they were saying, using complete sentences, or coming up with ideas.  So, why not hit several birds at once, so to speak?  I went ahead and themed it to my room (safari) and revamped the "top 10" so that they had to say one thing about 10 given subjects.  

So, please click on the picture to download from Google Drive.  I've also included a blank template so you can fill in your own subjects, or have your students fill in their own with pictures for the younger kiddos or leave it open ended!

Going Crazy While Trying to Stay Sane! (Plus a Freebie or 2)

Well, gosh, isn't that all of us at the end of the year?

It's been a crazy two weeks.  This past week, my daughter got the "stomach bug" that's been going around, so I was in and out of school, which has been hard as we try to finish our final math unit (measurement) and go into review mode for our end-of-year tests next week!

So, thought I'd show you what we've been up to and share a little freebie I created for a summer packet!  More on that later....

First, our measurement unit was rushed, but we had a little fun with it by measuring our feet in first inches, then centimeters.  I cannot remember who published this idea, so if it yours, please credit yourself!

Had fun with our unit on Egypt by creating an Egyptian scene (the pieces are Playmobil I received from a grant several years back - if you haven't heard of the grant, go to their website and apply!  I received "sixth place" but still got plenty of good things!).  Those are hippos and crocodiles in the Nile. :)

Then, our grade level did a rotation on ancient China and Egypt.  I reviewed the Chinese contributions and we made kites, students chose 4 of the contributions (besides kite) to illustrate, and then wrote the contributions on the tails of the kite.  I added a straw to the back of the kites to make them a bit sturdier (I have no idea if they'll really fly - I must have answered that question dozens of times! I haven't heard the results yet, either!).

We have a fabulous world carpet that students play a game to learn the continents.  I substituted my reading focus wall to put up the USA map so students could learn their places around the country.  They loved finding the places as much as jumping around the "world" on the rug! (The labels are just sentence strips and the map I've had for years - used permanent marker to draw mountains, etc. and added a map key that I wrote right on the bulletin board paper!).  With all that practice, they aced their standard!

We created the "Summer Bucket List" by Kristen Clements that turned out super cute!  I had a 5th grade teacher who was so impressed, she did the same for her class!

Finished our prefix/suffix unit with creating flowers to make our "grammar tree" look a bit more festive outside our room.

Shared "Flat Stanleys" that had returned from adventures!

For the end of year gift/summer review for my students - well, I knew they would not be happy doing worksheets at home and honestly, after trying to work with my own kids, I know what a struggle it is!  I brainstormed and came up with activities the kiddos could do that would make things fun, as well as mirror some of the games we've played in class!  When I presented it to them on Friday (I had one student whose last day it was - she's heading to England!) they were super excited!  I got most of the items at Dollar Tree.

I added a few things in there that they might not have at home, but for the most part, tried to make it "user friendly" so that students wouldn't have to hunt for materials (or the parents wouldn't have to go out and buy a lot!).  You can find the Summer Review Activity Packet at Google Docs.  Its in Powerpoint format, so if you'd like to make changes and personalize it, you can!  I paired it in their buckets with another freebie, You Can Even Read a Cereal Box by Cynthia Vautrot.  Love her idea!

So, how are you ending your year?