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!

Super Spies in the Library!

Our second summer session in the library was all about being spies.  I had about the same number of kids show up to this session as the last one, with some new faces.  I know families are on vacation or the day of the week wasn't convenient, but so far, I've gotten really good feedback for even offering the sessions!  It makes me happy, since one of my goals at my initial interview for the library was to make it more "community friendly."  While I had sent home notices before school ended about each of the sessions, I also reached out on Facebook to local friends and made sure people realized that they didn't have to be a student to attend.  I have several friends who are homeschoolers, and I wanted them to feel welcome as well.

When students first arrived, I had a little welcome sign and checklist for suggested activities to complete for their spy training.  I also had mustaches for students to put on for their disguise that I had picked up at Dollar Tree.  They claimed they were self-adhesive, but honestly, either the paper was too hard to peel, or once you peeled it, half the mustache came off!  Tape to the rescue!  It was a little disappointing, but gosh, they were sooo soft!  I kept playing with them, and the kids didn't mind as much.  Somehow, mustaches on the forehead became popular as well :)

 One of the most popular activities was the "laser maze."  Using electrical tape from Walmart, I created a "laser grid" between two of my nonfiction shelves.  I had one rising second grader that did this continually for almost 30 minutes!  Too funny!  Towards the end, my daughter and one of her friends decided to "add" to the maze, making it virtually impossible to get through, which, being rising fourth graders, might have been the point?

Some of the other stations included code breaking, fingerprinting, doing a "search the room" for more codes, a silhouette search (matching the mystery genre character to the silhouette - for the younger ones, I did more familiar characters such as Clifford and Hungry Caterpillar), and filling out a "007 badge" of sorts.  Not sure why I don't have pics for all of the stations, but want to share what I have!  The kids really seemed to enjoy the whole "Spy Academy" theme, and many came back for our Superhero Day (which I'll detail more in my next post).  

As with my other session, I had a display of themed books (this time, mysteries and spies) set up for students to look at and check out.  While everyone cannot make it to all sessions, I have all books due at Open House, which is coming up fast on August 7!  I was a little worried about books not returning that were checked out during the summer, then realized that the parents that were taking the time to bring the kids in would definitely be responsible enough to make sure the books were returned!

I did bundle a lot of the activities I created, such as the code, silhouette hunt, and fingerprint dust recipe.  That's available in my TPT and TN stores (link in previous post), but wanted to include my checklist and display signs for you to look closer at!  Click on the pictures below to download or to look more closely at them!  The signs I created to fit display signs I had picked up from Michaels Craft Store a few years ago (and had lost but recently found - timely, huh?).  They're 4 to a page, so I'm sure they'll fit to whatever occasion you need them.