The End of the Year is all About Growth.
The end of the school year is filled with documentation, testing, and data. My days are like yours, filled with assessment, celebrations, and sadly anxiety and disappointment of students missing that grade-level score. I know the data is important, but I love to cast that aside for a few days and celebrate each and every child's individual growth.
To begin this mini-unit I love to begin with one of my favorite children's songs by Hap Palmer. This sweet song is also a great way to tie celebrating growth of self to other things that might be happening in your classroom such as plants, butterflies, farm, jungle, etc.
I ask my students to bring in pictures of themselves as babies. The kids LOVE this. Each day we look at the pictures brought in and talk about the changes. When I first hold up the picture, we sing from the Hap Palmer song... "_______ started out as a tiny little babe. _____ grew a little more ..." The kids are so excited to sing about each other in this way.
As the pictures come in I put the baby picture and a current picture on a some sort of bulletin display. If by chance a student can't find a baby picture (and you know that will happen), I simply have them draw one. They seem to be just as happy!
Another song I love to use is "All I'm Meant To Be."
This beautiful song celebrates growth at one's own rate. The poster can be found in our graduation packet below.
Also Available at Teachers Pay Teachers!
Product Description
Students love these End of the School Year, themed readers. Paper books allow for authentic reading experiences that extend into the home as students take their own books home to share and keep.
End of the year themed readers make learning to read fun and engaging! Kids LOVE these paper end -of -a -school -year -themed -books!
Contents:
What I Can Do Now
My School
My Friends
Summer Vacation
Also available at Teachers Pay Teachers!
Product Description
Strategically Linked to the common core, this best-selling Thematic plant unit is divided into areas of literature, media, music, art, literacy activities, math activities, worksheets, science activities, creative writing, word wall words, and guided reading for cross-curricular learning.
The activities are clearly written, easy to use, and need limited amounts of preparation. The lessons are fun and engaging and will leave your classroom or homeschool students begging for more.
Math Center Activities
Flowering Math: Joining Sets
Watermelon War: Comparing Numerals
Garden Party: Demonstrating Subtraction
Counting Seeds: Count out items to match a given number.
Planting Seeds: Making Combinations to 10
Adding Flowers
Garden Takeaway
Plant a Garden Ways to Make 8
Reading Center Activities:
Flower Garden: Reading Sight Word & CVC Word Sentences (or alphabet recognition).
Tip Toe Through the Tulips: Alphabet letter sound fluency (or sight word fluency)
Run Rabbit Run: Alphabet Letter Fluency
In the Garden: Naming Sight Words
Greenhouse Words: Reading Sight Words
Blooming Words: Isolating Phonemes & Writing CVC Words From Dictation
The Garden Show: Writing Color Words
Science Activities
Building a Science Center
A Seed Grows: Planting a seed in a bag
Kitchen Science: Edible Dirt
Plant Parts: Observation of Plants
The Thirsty Stem: Capillary Action In Plants
Seed Sorting: Using the Scientific Process
Art Projects
Plant Parts: Portfolio Sample
Artful Flowers
Mother's Day Flower
Fingerprint Flowers
Songs
Watermelon Pie
Inch by Inch (adapted) by David Mallet
Plant A Seed
Guided Reading
The Little Seed
Writing
Plant Word Wall Words
Prompts: All About Seeds,What I Know About Plants
I Can Writing: Label it, list it card it
Pond Independent Writing Center Activities
Spring Themed Intervention Games
Lamb and Lion Spring Themed Activities
Each activity is clearly written, easy to use, and needs limited preparation. The lessons are fun and engaging and will leave your students begging for more!
Also Available at Teachers Pay Teachers!
Looking for some songs for your end of the year program or graduation? These are my favorite! For links to the music visit here.