*A few years back, I began the last days of fourth grade countdown.
*We start the countdown with the number of students in our class (plus the teacher) and continue on until the very last day of school.
*It is an awesome way to end the year and so fun to highlight each student and some of their favorites from the year.
*Here are some of the specials events we do during each final day...
*Each student gets to pick out the picture book that I will read to the class during our morning meeting.
*During each student's special day, they pick our morning meeting greeting and game that the class will participate in. They pick from our year-long list of greetings and games.
*We have a final 30-Day Chain. There are some positive "reward" type items in the chain and there are some negative "non-reward" type items. The student of the day can either say YES to the Chain or NO to the Chain. The whole class will either receive the reward or the non-reward. They don't know what is on each chain link until they decide yes or no.
*The class also participates in "Smarter Than a Fourth Grader." Each day two students compete against each other with five trivia questions. The student that gets the most correct, continues in the next round the following day. After each student gets one turn, we have our semi-final round and then of course the finals.
*During each day of the countdown, the student of the day reads their "Year in Review" sheet which is a reflection of our year together. They also get to pick their favorite music Monday song/video to watch and their favorite video of the week from the year.
*We all know how important the "first six weeks" are for a class.
*I think the final days are just as important and I want each student to know and feel how important they are and were to our community of learners.
*If you have any questions or want more details about our final 30-day countdown, please post a comment here or send me a tweet. I would be happy to give you more information!
I was just referred to your blog by Ruminate and Invigorate and I am totally mesmerized! I can't get enough. How do you do all this - come up with so many new ideas it looks like daily and plan for curriculum learning? I am so full of ideas for next year. Please share more information on your end of year countdown. We are there! Thanks for this inspiring blog. I
ReplyDeleteCould you give us some examples of your non-reward items from the chain?
ReplyDelete