The Last Week of School

The last week of school is here!!! The kids are ready for summer, the teacher is ready for summer.  Report cards are completed and ready to stuff into envelopes.  The class DVD's are almost finished.  I'm just waiting until Tuesday to add the last of my photos.  Tuesday is our field day.  We have such a fun time that I must include photos from that day.  If you are making a DVD slideshow for your students, you can read about mine in this post and grab my free personalized DVD covers. If you need song suggestions, they are listed in the post too.

Ending the last week of school can be difficult.  You've probably ran out of copies on the copy machine, you might have started packing up your classroom and you are probably having trouble getting your kids to focus.  I make our last week fun and memorable.  Here are my plans for our last week of school.

Each morning we will review skills we have been working on.  I'll be using 1 math and 1 language arts page from my May Homework-Morning Work Pack.

We will be writing daily in our writing Notebooks and I will be reading some of my favorite last week of school books.  I have listed links to the books below.

Kindergartners don't really understand what it means to say good-bye on the last day.  We will talk about it several times this week.  I will try not to say too much about going onto 1st grade as I do have a student who will not be moving on this year.  I will focus on how they will be having a new teacher after summer break.  I let them know I want to see them in the fall and hope that they come to visit me.  I still have kids who come back often just for a hug and a hello. 

The week will be busy with long lists of things I will need to do.  Then of course there is the last day.  We no longer do a kindergarten promotion.  Last year we surprised the kids with a movie in our multi-use room.  We will be doing that again this year.  They will receive a pack of movie, drink and popcorn tickets,  We will watch a short movie before returning to class.  Towards the end of our day the entire school gathers in our center court to say good-by to our second graders.  They will be moving on to our intermediate school.  We will then have about 10 minutes of dance time. before picking up our back-packs, one last hug and for me a teary eyed goodbye.  I will then gather my things, and head home quickly to set-up for our staff luncheon celebration.  We usually have it at a restaurant but this year we thought we'd try something new.  The best part is my husband is catering it all.  He will be preparing enchiladas, homemade mango salsa and some tropical adult beverages.  

So here is to a fabulous last week of school. Only 5 days left and 2 of those are 1/2 days!!!