Countdown to the Last Day - Thank You & Summer Birthday Party

I'm in the final stretch, can't believe week 38 is finally here. 3 1/2 days left...

Last Friday we celebrated by having a camp out in class. I mentioned it the other day... We made s'mores cones, painted pet rocks, and did a nature activity book that the local association gave to my grade level. 

Today our agenda included more thank you notes ( we've been making them every morning for the past week), completing grade level centers, and having our summer birthday party. 

What? Yep a summer birthday party.

Before I go into that let me tell you what we did in the morning. Basically we got to school and had 30 minutes to make more thank you notes. We have been making 2 thank you notes per morning for days now. We have covered our principal, vp, librarian, office ladies, firemen, our reading buddies, 5th grade play presenter class, and chaperones. Today we wrote notes to 2 more important people - our custodians. Tomorrow we finish with our parents. Yes, they will write notes to their parents for helping them learn all their 4th grade material. 

Anyhow, after thank yous, after prep, after recess, we had 2 hours for our grade level rotations. There are 4 rooms, so the classes rotated through for about 28 minutes per room. Just simple things that the kids love- and it fills time with us doing the same activity with a new bunch of kids over and over (i.e. - we all had time to pack up our rooms while the kids were entertained).  My room was Boggle.

When my class rotated back to me it was time for our pizza party, then they went outside to play when I set up for our summer birthday party.

I have a bday party that includes all the kids that aren't in school on their special day.  I mean, everyone in my class participates, it's just FOR the kids that aren't there.  3 weeks ago I gave them their special homework pass and their special pencil so they could use it before the end of school. I told them that they could bring in treats if they wanted. Then it was just a matter of setting up games to play. 

We had pin the tail on the donkey, limbo, musical chairs, 

and blew up balloons to draw faces on them. 

We also made birthday wish posters. 

Usually I have the kids take a half sheet of copy paper to make up their birthday wishes- but we couldn't do 8 in a day. Could you imagine trying to organize that? So instead we made birthday posters. Same concept but they just wandered around to the different posters writing their birthday wishes. The kids get so creative with birthday wishes - ponies, fairies, iPads, health, favorite meal. :)

Linking this up with Holly over at Fourth Grade Flipper 

I hope you had a great day!