Mrs. Plemons' Kindergarten

Bright Ideas for Little Learners

books, Elementary, summer

Books Teachers Love: Last Day Hooray

Wow, I can’t believe that we are talking about June read alouds already! If you are busy wrapping up your school year and looking for great books to keep your class engaged, my bloggy friends and I are sharing our favorite read alouds for the end of the year before we take a little break from our book sharing blog series or the summer.

Lets be real, there are so many exciting things going on at the end of the year it is easy to get wrapped up in all the fun activities and let learning take a back seat. But if you plan ahead you can keep your kiddos working on all of the skills they need while celebrating a great year together.  One of the books I use at the end of the year to engage my students in writing activities is Last Day, Hooray! by Nancy Poydar.

The students and school staff in the story are busy cleaning and wrapping up their school year, dreaming about the summer ahead and planning a celebration for their teacher.  

 

It is both exciting and a little bit sad to take everything down at the end of the year, so this book is perfect to read on the day that we start packing up our own classroom. While I like to have students help with a lot of the work I need to get done it can get pretty chaotic with 18 students all trying to help clean and pack up at the same time.  So I like to have lots of writing activities for students to work on while I have a few students at a time completing end of the year assessments, and helping me with different projects.
The biggest writing project my students work on is their memory book.  
If I have time I like to print out pictures of my students for the first few pages.

It’s fun to see what they remember about their year in kindergarten.

I love seeing students reflect on everything they’ve done throughout the year.
We also complete a few writing projects to share with parents at the Kindergarten Celebration. Students start by writing the top 10 things they learned and memories they made.

Then they choose one special memory to illustrate and read aloud during our ceremony.

And last they use their top ten lists to help them write a letter to the incoming kindergartners about what they will learn and do in kindergarten.

You can find these printable writing activities, and more end of the year fun, in my Kindergarten Celebration Pack.

Don’t forget to enter to win 4 awesome June Read Alouds! And you get to choose any 4 you’d like!

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4 Comments

Comments

  1. Kelli says: May 15, 2016 at 9:02 pm

    What a precious keepsake! And good call on keeping them busy while they also help clean up… the struggle is real!

    Reply
  2. Katie Knight says: May 16, 2016 at 3:15 am

    So sweet!

    Reply
  3. One Sharp Bunch by Ashley Sharp says: May 17, 2016 at 12:52 am

    It's hard to believe that it's already the end of the year! Our memory books are one of our favorites to work on at the end of the year!

    Reply
  4. Peggy Means says: May 18, 2016 at 8:01 pm

    I love your kindergarten memory book!

    Peggy @ Primary Flourish

    Reply

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