Highlights of Successful Year

As an elementary teacher, I have already admitted to not being the most excited teacher when it comes to the end of the year - I miss my students and those daily insights into their lives as I watch them grow. 

Ahh, well, ready or not - summer break is here, which makes it the perfect time for some reflection on our year. It's great fun to reflect back on all of the fun and success we had during our year together.  Recently I had my students brainstorm and list the fun activities and projects we worked on this year.  I can honestly say they remembered far more than I did!  Here is a rather imperfect photo of our list - hurriedly scribbled on the chalkboard as they were shouting out more and more suggestions...honestly, I couldn't keep up!  What  a marvelous indication that we jam-packed our year with loads of learning, a plethora of projects, and about a gazillion giggles!

{A couple of notes about our classroom:  If it looks like we never wash our chalkboard, that is probably because we rarely do.  We are too busy learning!  If it looks like a traditional elementary classroom with desks lined up in rows, this was actually taken on move-your-desk-where-you-want day and these gals chose to sit in a row at the front of the room.} 

Here are some of the fun projects and activities the students wanted listed on the board (and these were all things we've done within the past 3-4-5 weeks of school!):

Thank you for being "thumb-body" special (office staff appreciation)
Scoot games and QR code scoot for learning and review
Flat Stanley projects
Survivor books and literature circles
Survivor challenges
Kidblog posts---->here is a link:  http://kidblog.org/2014-15KincerClass/
Book project (authoring our own published books)
Publishing party for newly published authors (oh, yeah!)
Career day for parents to come in and share
Teacher appreciation letters (delivered to staff members)
Mother's Day projects (key jar, letter, card, People magazine cover and article, blog post)
Mystery classmate POW
Paragraph of the week anthology book
Collecting money to help D.I. teams and Riley's Children's Hospital (silly sock days, crazy hair days, etc.)
ISTEP "ladies" visit
Making salsa for Cinco de Mayo
Dress as favorite book character
Reader's theaters
Wordless picture book fun
Earth Day activities
Battle Bunny (by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett) altered-book project
Nearpod for science fun
Lincoln field trip
Shadow and light experiments
Kahoot for science review
Ag Day at 4-H fairgrounds
Futaba for social studies review
MMMM - Mr. Mehling (principal) Multiplication Masters
You Are Special writing (something nice about each student)
Letter to incoming 3rd graders
Graphing reading levels and growth
Time capsule activities
Letter to senior self
Learned song "Kind and Generous" as surprise for retiring staff members
I-Day (field day - including annual teachers vs. 5th graders softball game) 

Oh, yes, and somewhere in there we also completed about 3 hours of practice testing and 6+ hours of ISTEP (state-mandated) testing.  

Even better - we read (tons), laughed (every single day), learned (lots), shared (resources, knowledge, experiences), cried (when a book had a sad event), grew (unmeasurably), and cemented year-long connections with our classmates.  These are what we take with us as the year ends.

Yep.  We should all feel very proud of our successful year.