BON VOYAGE, FIRST GRADE!!!

We waved "bon voyage" this week to our school year.  Sniffle, sniffle.  Actually - I was experiencing some major burn-out, so I was VERY happy to close that last book.  :) 

For our final couple of weeks of first grade, I decided to go with a bon voyage cruise theme for some ways to review a bit of what we learned this year.  

It is important to keep your ship in tip top shape, right?  Here is a "swab the deck" activity I had Miss A work on.  

I wrote several of her spelling words on a sheet protector using a WET erase marker.  It was her job to clean up the words that were misspelled (the messes) by mopping them off the deck using a paintbrush (mop) and bucket of water (little cup with water in it). 

The nice thing is that this activity can be used over and over - just plug in sight words, spelling words, math facts, etc.

Look out the portholes and see the flying fish!  Miss A matched the fish answer to the math sentence porthole.  I used highlighter tape so it could be easily removed, and I could re-use the portholes for different math facts or another activity later on.

This is a picture of Miss A donning a lei for the bon voyage party aboard the ship.  She colored in her face and clothes and I placed BLANK highlighter tape around the neckline where a lei would belong.  

I then gave Miss A a spelling review test of some of her sight and spelling words.  She had to write the words on the highlighter tape as I gave them to her.  If she wrote the word correctly, we removed the tape and she glued a flower to that spot.  If she did NOT write the word correctly, the tape stayed there.  

The following day, we would try the word again until she completed the entire lei.   :)

This was an art activity Miss A completed to go along with our sailing theme.  I could not find a poem that fit with our theme and the end of first grade, so I just made up my own.  Download it for FREE here.

Of course, we spent some time working on a first grade memory book as well.  Mommies like to keep such things!  

(If you are interested in purchasing a first grade memory book,  mine is available for sale in my TPT store here.)

PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL POEMS AND PAGES YOU SEE ABOVE ARE CREATED BY ME AND MAY NOT BE USED, COPIED, OR CHANGED IN ANY WAY WITHOUT MY PERMISSION (in other words, if you like it - please buy it instead of trying to copy it.  It isn't expensive, and I have put a lot of time and effort into it).

In addition to our "cruise" duties, we decided have an end of the year party aboard our "ship" and invited family.  I made some boarding passes and sent them out.

Miss A worked on a sign for our front door.  She wanted to make the words look like clouds but quickly realized that might take quite a while and not fit as well.  Instead, we opted to just make the first letter of each word a cloud letter and then write the rest of the letters with a marker.

When the guests arrived, they were greeted by our little ship's captain and sent to the deck where they could sign the "ship's log".  For this area, we had the guests complete the fingerprint flower poem and autograph/well wishes page from her memory book.  

The guests then donned leis and headed to the ship's galley for refreshments.  We even had entertainment (compliments of the ship's captain once more) AND an end of the year slideshow!

Prior to people's arrival, I had set up one wall that was the "bow" of the ship where the portholes looked out on the work Miss A had done at the beginning of the year.  An opposite wall contained the "stern" or "end of the year" work in portholes so guests could marvel at the amazing progress in one year's time.

If you've never done this - try it next year!  It is SOOO neat (at least it is for me) for both the kids and adults to be able to compare work from the beginning of the year to what has been accomplished by the school year's end!

Speaking of END - did I mention it is the END of our school year (insert giddiness)?!?  If course I did but it is definitely worth repeating!  Woo hoo!  And now I guess it is time for me to end this post (I know, I know - a bit over the top.  Just point me in the direction of some dark chocolate to make it stop).

For those wondering, I might be posting some things in the summer that did not make it into the blog during the year.   And just a heads up, if your kids like pattern blocks (or still do), make sure you check out the post about 4Blocks - coming soon!  :)

UPDATE:  Click here for a link to the 4Blocks post.

Linking to:

www.cornerstoneconfessions.com

www.milkandcuddles.com

www.momontimeout.com

www.ithappensinablink.com