It can be a challenge to keep your students' attention during the last week of school. Everyone is ready for summer vacation. In an effort to keep my kiddos engaged and learning during that last week, I've come up with five themed days that will keep your students learning, interested and wanting to come to school. Read about exciting and engaging themed days to make your last week of school memorable and interesting.
Watermelon Day is full of sweet treats. The weekend before Watermelon Day, I let my students know that we're going to be celebrating all things watermelon. I encourage them to wear pink and green clothing or anything that has a watermelon or fruit on it. I decorate my classroom with this adorable Tutti Frutti decor and we let the celebration begin. We start the day with some fruit tasting using these Tutti Frutti plates, and we take pictures with these colorful fruit stick photo props. Students then survey each other to ask students about their favorite fruits. After gathering data, students chart and graph their findings. We then complete an amazing science experiment...exploding a watermelon! Watch the video here. This is definitely the best part of the day. Finally, we end the day with a simple watercolor art project and I pass out these mini fruit erasers as a final treat. Find the step by step directions here.
Students come on Sports Day dressed in their favorite team's jersey or colors. I usually wear my Dodger Blue! I decorate the classroom with cute sports decor, and set up some little games around the room like this Football Bean Bag Toss game. On this day, students surveyed more than just the students in our class. They went out to the playground during other grade level recesses and asked students about their favorite sports. After gathering the data, students graphed their findings. They wrote about the most popular sports and also explained what needed to be added to our playground based on the data to make the playground more inviting to all students. Students also created a sports pennant about their grade level. Finally, we ended the day by watching the movie Everyone's Hero.
Decades Day definitely brings out the creativity in us all! Students come to school on Decades Day dressed as if they were from a particular decade. I decorate the classroom to represent a few decades using a 90s Garland, 80s Party Cutouts, Rock n' Roll Cutouts and 70s Party Cutouts. On this day, I assign students to cooperative groups and have them choose a decade they want to research. They use this question sheet to research their decade and then create a poster that represents the information they've found. Finally, we create some fun pop art based on Warhol and Lichtenstein all while listening to 1950s rock n' roll!
I love coming to school dressed as my favorite book character, and I ask students to do just that on Book Character day! On this day, we enjoy guessing what each other's costumes are and which character we've chosen to emulate. Students interview one another on this day to find out who their favorite book characters are and why. I also ask students to create a comic series that involves their favorite character. They also recount a story based on their favorite book character's adventure. We decorate the room with pennants based on book characters, too. I end the day by passing out fun shaped bookmarks.
Movie Day usually takes place on the last day of school. Our grade-level team asks parents to donate concession stand treats like candies, popcorn, licorice, etc. Students work all week to earn special tickets that can then be used to "buy" things from the concession stand that we decorated with these Concession Signs. We open all of our classrooms up and have students choose which movie they want to go see. Each teacher plays a different movie. Our last day of school is usually a half-day, so students spend the morning watching the movie and visiting with friends. I like decorating my room on the last day with simple movie theatre decor like Movie Dinner Napkins, Mini Popcorn Boxes and Movie Party Dinner Plates. I just love how a little bit of themed decor gets my students happy and excited!
