Falling Into First: Blasting Into 2nd Grade & Giveaway

So I'm not Blasting into 2nd grade but my 24 favorite first graders are in just a little over a week! As your kiddos head that way too I would highly encourage you to look at the This Year Was Out of This World {End of Year Activities} packet by one of my favorite bloggers, Rachelle, from What The Teacher Wants.The part of the packet I have chosen to focus on are the end of the year writing activities.

On Monday my students walked in to find 8 balloons hanging from the ceiling. This built instant excitement and anticipation! They could see that something was inside each balloon but I would not confirm or deny any of their endless guesses.

Then they used the included template to make rocket ships with their faces drawn on them & wrote about why they were looking forward to 2nd grade.

(This is the hall way outside of my classroom and my set up for displaying student work. I hang individual writing over each student's cubby. The bulletin board displays projects.)

On Tuesday I picked a particularly on task student to finally pop the first balloon. Inside was question number two of eight for them to answer in their 1st Grade Memory Books.

We are now in the process of popping 1 balloon every day until the last full day of school (our true last day is a half day) to complete the Memory Books!

As the teacher, I really enjoy hearing the kiddos discuss the answers to the questions and reminisce with the people around them. It's cool to see what really sticks out the most to which kids. Rachelle is having a Flash Sale on this unit right now in her TPT shop so go check it out!!

And just a reminder I'm having a GIVEAWAY for 3 of my {iDad Father's Day Craftivity} from my TPT shop this Sunday.