Just making it through- behaviour management

I'm going back into the archive for this one...but it's a good one!

Every year in May and June it gets HOT in Ontario....soooooo hot.

The kids are hot, the teachers are hot...everything is hot.
(Most years…this year? Who knows!!)

What to do??
So how do I plan to make it through without losing my sanity!?

FREEDOM FRIDAYS!!!

As a general rule I am not sure how I feel about Freedom Fridays as a behaviour incentive for the duration of the school year, but for the last few weeks of the school year it works wonders to keep everyone (me) happy!

This is what the Freedom Friday board looks like in my room. 

I just used those markers that can write on the board and only come off with water. 

Fancy, right?

Then I have my students work in groups to brainstorm all the ways they could earn a letter towards getting Freedom Friday (a free period for games etc) and what they might do to lose a previously earned letter. 

There are always some great conversations going on in my room during this activity! 

I hear things like, "Mrs. Lyons is always reminding us to do ______ so it must be important!" 

(That one made me giggle a little.) 

We also have a quick review on how to brainstorm- take down every idea that is given and talk about it after you have run out of ideas.

I am always impressed by how focused my students are on the task...nothing like the allure of a little free time to get students motivated! 

Try it and let me know how it goes in your room. 

End of the Year Plans...Getting Through Till the End of June!

Here is an activity my class and I did to celebrate the end of the year last year...and that I plan to repeat this year.

Stephanie from Teaching in Room 6 posted about these great goodbye posters her students made for a staff member that was leaving her school and I just loved how they looked. I decided that I wanted to do a smiler project with my Grade 4's because we had been studying perspective in art and language so it would be a good "curricular" tie-in for the last week of school. 

This year I think it will just be  a fun "end of the school year" project, especially once we are done our EQAO (standardized testing) in two weeks. 

Each student traced their hand and then drew themselves "waving goodbye to Grade 4". In the speech bubbles we wrote all the things we would miss about Grade 4. They turned out super cute, I think! Thanks to Stephanie for such a great idea.

I am also thinking I would like to do this Watercolour Journal Page that Tara posted about over at 4th Grade Frolics.

Don't they look amazing?

Photo via 4th Grade Frolics

Lastly, this is an art project I did at the beginning of the year last year when I taught art and I LOVED it. I didn't get to teach my own art this year (sad) so I think it would make a good ending project!

These are the finished Name Art Projects my students completed last year when I taught Grade 4. 

Here are a few of my favourites!

What are your "go-to" activities for the end of the year?

Good Morning Summer!! End of the Year Activities (Chapter 3- Emergent Readers)

Jenn from Rowdy in First Grade has posted some great thoughts about Chapter 3 of our Guiding Readers book study- Guiding Emergent Readers.





Please head on over to read what she is saying. I really enjoyed reading through her post and seeing things through the eyes of a first grade teacher. As I have never taught such small people, it was interesting to learn about guided reading from Jenn's perspective. 

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I am FINALLY on summer break. It seems like the end of the school year took forever to get here, especially since I have been reading all our your posts about vacations, Made It Mondays, sleeping in...and gasp, back to school shopping?? How can 2 countries that are so close together have such vastly different school schedules?

The last week of school was both fun and stressful. I'm not sure if I have ever mentioned it before but my school is waaaaaaay over-capacity. We have a building built for 675 students and our current population is close to 1300!! So, that means we have something like 20+ portables (trailers) outside the main building. Being this big presents a whole lot of unique challenges for the staff, and come report card time life just got CRAZY! But, everything was sorted out, report cards went home (a day behind schedule!) and we made it through the year.

Here are some things my class and I did to celebrate the end of the year.

Stephanie from Teaching in Room 6 posted about these great goodbye posters her students made for a staff member that was leaving her school and I just loved how they looked. I decided that I wanted to do a smiler project with my Grade 4's because we had been studying perspective in art and language so it would be a good "curricular" tie-in for the last week of school. 

Each student traced their hand and then drew themselves "waving goodbye to Grade 4". In the speech bubbles we wrote all the things we would miss about Grade 4. They turned out super cute, I think! Thanks to Stephanie for such a great idea.

We also made masks (it was an artsy week). We used tinfoil (three layers) to create an outline of our faces and then paper macho went on top. They dried overnight and then the painting fun could start!

These were a few of my favourites.

Lastly, we converted one of our bulletin boards into a Twitter board and we updated our "status" based on the activities we did during the day. I loved it and am thinking I would like to find a way to use it all year in my class...like an exit ticket activity?

How did you end off your school year?