Fun in First

A Teaching Blog by Jodi Southard

Summer

Father’s Day – Donuts with Dad

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A couple weeks ago, I had a Donuts with Dad morning in my classroom.  If you happen to still be in school (sorry), this is a great way to celebrate Father’s Day with your students.
In preparation, we made mugs that I purchased from Dollar Tree.
I purchased Elmer’s paint markers to use.  Originally, I was going to use Sharpies, but after reading many tutorials, I went with the actual paint markers instead.
I was a little worried about these being messy or running down the mug, but they were great!
My goal was to take these mugs home and bake them to try to keep the marker from washing away…however, it was the last few days of school and life was just too crazy.
Instead, I just included these instructions for the dads.
We also practiced poems to read to our dads, and made our Father’s Day Flipbooks.
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Mothers-Day-Fathers-Day-Flip-Books-1810776
I made a slideshow to share that included pictures of each child along with what they loved about their dad.
It was a great morning!

Summer Learning Chain

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I don’t know about you, but I’m thinking towards the end of the school year.  I always like to send something home with my students to keep their little minds working over the summer.  I have sent home activity calendars in the past, but wanted to make it a little more exciting this year.
I came up with the idea of a Summer Learning Chain using Astrobrights colored paper.
I printed a list of summer activities onto different colors of paper.  I used a huge variety of colors including my favorites of Blast-Off Blue, Solar Yellow, and Fireball Fuschia.
Each page has a different activity.  This makes it easy to cut and stack the activities for each student.
After they are printed, I can stack up all of the papers and cut the activities into strips using the paper cutter.
After the strips are cut, I will place a stack into a baggie for each student.
The students will be able to take these home on the last day of school.  Throughout the summer, they can pull out a strip and complete the activity.
As they complete an activity, they can tape or glue the strip into a circle and create a chain of activities.
Students will be able to see how long they can make their learning chain.
You can easily make up your own activities, but if you would like to download my set of FREEBIE activities, click HERE.
What a fun, and colorful, learning activity for this summer!
 This is a sponsored post. I received payment, trade and/or products from Astrobrights in exchange for promoting.  However, all opinions are my own and I only promote brands and products that I love.


Summer Activity Calendar {FREEBIE}

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The school year is almost over.  This is the time of year when I start to panic.  Did I teach them everything I needed to teach?  Are they ready for 2nd grade?  What if they forget everything over the summer?  Add in all of the regular end of the year chaos, and it leads to a lot of sleepless nights 😉
A couple of years ago, I made this summer activity calendar to send home with my students.  It has a very quick activity for each day of summer break.  I wanted to keep those brains engaged, but still let them be able to enjoy the pure freedom of a childhood summer!
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Summer-Activities-Calendar-Freebie-246066
 
These calendars are perfect for parents to hang on the refrigerator or keep in the car. (Car rides always seem to be the perfect place to sneak in some academic skills.  Maybe it’s because the kids are buckled in, and can’t go anywhere.  Whatever works right?)
https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Summer-Activities-Calendar-Freebie-246066
 
You can download this FREEBIE by clicking HERE or either of the pictures above.