Every year, I have students write letters to next year students and grade me on a report card. I wanted this exciting year to end with a "WOW" so I started my search on TPT (teacherspayteachers.com) for anything that was free. I found many great ideas. The first one I used was The Final Countdown. I used it as a brainstorm for the letter to their locker pal who is the student who gets their locker next year. I will tape their letters in the lockers before the new students are assigned their lockers. I had student make a summer bucket list bookmark of all the things they hoped to do in the next two months.
I find that having my students grading me throughout the year and at the end gives me amazing feedback on how to improve next year. This year I used SurveyMonkey. I've used this website for years and love it so I don't know why I never thought to use it for this before. As students wrote their letters, I had students complete the survey using the computer area in my classroom.
On our second to the last day, I decided to do a Minute to Win It competition. On YouTube, you can get all the blueprints from the show, but I decided to use the written ones from Tonya's Treats for Teachers. If you use YouTube and you have a Mac, you can download the blueprints and put them all together as one video. I plan to make this during the summer for next year. I chose 7 out of 25 games from the written ones. I was able to get all the supplies for under $30 for four classes.
All year I've wanted to do a lip sync battle like Jimmy Fallon! I borrowed a microphone and stand from the chorus teacher. I showed the clip of Jimmy Fallon and Paul Rudd competing. I had students write down their favorite one to two songs so that we had a playlist for the day. I put the song titles on strips of paper for students to randomly pick out. I made the playlist using Grooveshark and listened to the songs to double check that they were appropriate for school.
To really get the students pumped, the co-teacher and I battled each other. We cheated by choosing our songs. I did Bust a Move by Young MC. When it came time to bust a move, I danced like Elaine from Seinfield. The co-teacher did the snowman song from Frozen since she has all the songs memorized thanks to her three-year-old daughter's infatuation with the movie.
As students left at the final dismissal bell of the year, I gave them all one of these to make a "Kool" treat for themselves.
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