Well my friends we have *almost* made it to the end of another fantastic school year! I know that many of you have already begun to countdown those last days of school and plan your end of the year activities. With final assessments to do, grades to input, and crowds to control (ha!), there is no tired like end of the year teacher tired. I hope this little post will give you that extra "oomph" you need for those last days/weeks!
I've done this activity when teaching arrays for a couple of years now, but I always seem to revamp it each time. Keeping with a summer theme, I use the idea of picnic blankets to help my kiddos visualize what an array is. Once we had that picture in our minds, I drew my "picnic blanket" on an anchor chart and wrote a repeated addition number sentence to match my drawing.
After I modeled my "picnic blanket", I had my kids create their own "Picnic Array". I die cut several red and white squares and let my kids choose the array they wanted to create. Keeping your kids engaged is super important throughout the entire year and creating engaging lessons, for sure, shouldn't be forgotten at the end of the year just because we find ourselves just trying to make it through till summer. Letting my students have a choice on how to show their understanding of a concept and giving them the opportunity to manipulate objects (including small bits of paper, ha!) keeps them engaged! Like I said, I've revamped this lesson a couple of times and you can find my original idea here. (In the original lesson, my kids used checkered napkins to create their array.)
You can find this free printable to use with your "Picnic Array" lesson here. (Fonts by: Hello Fonts and Cara Carroll, Graphics by: Bubbly Borders and More and Creative Clips)
Reviewing is another important piece of any end of the year countdown. I'm always left wondering if my kids have retained all the information that I have tried to pack into their little minds over the past nine months. That's where my Ready as can be for Grade Three math review comes in handy!
This packet has a quick assessment for each second grade Common Core math standard. I usually have my students complete a couple of pages a day leading up to the last week of school. We then go over the pages in their review packet to check for understanding. You could also use this as a summer review packet and send it home with your students, or this can be used to preview firsties for second grade or review second grade standards at the beginning of third grade. However you use it, I hope you find it helpful for your students! This product can be found in my little shop here.
Let's face it... I love a good theme day anytime of the year, but theme days at the end of the year are a MUST for me! Sadly, I had to take an unexpected early maternity leave and I cannot be there with my kiddos to celebrate the end of the year, but I did blog about my theme days last year. You can find that post here. You can click on the following titles to find these packets in my shop.
All of my end of the year activities will be on sale until the end of the day. Hang in there friends and savor every final moment with your sweet class! If all else fails, keep calm 'cause it's almost summer!
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