The Countdown Begins...

I can't believe we only have 22 days of school left!  Well, as of Tuesday.  Every year I do an activity that I call Balloon Pop Countdown.  Depending on the number of students I have - determines how many balloons I fill and what number I begin counting down the days.  This year I have 22 students so we began this week.  I hung 22 balloons from the ceiling filled with slips of paper that have some sort of special activity on it.

The kids are SO excited to see all the balloons in our room... but the best part is each student gets to POP a balloon to help us count down our last days of school.  At the end of each day, I pick a stick and that student gets to pop our next balloon to tell us what tomorrow has in store for us.  Here is a close up of one of our balloons.  See the slip of paper inside?

So what did day 22 have in store for us?  It was BUBBLE GUM DAY!  I bought a HUGE tub of bubble gum - enough for the kids to have 4 pieces that we spread throughout the day.  It wasn't just about chewing gum but there was much more in store.  First, we read about how bubble gum was invented.  Here is the book we read:

Then we read the book "Lester Fizz, Bubble Gum Artist" by Ruth Spiro.

  

This book is about a boy who grows up in a family of artists.  Lester doesn't seem to be good at anything.  Members of his family can paint, collect, make sculptures... but Lester is good at blowing bubbles.  He finds out that he can blow amazing art bubbles the shapes of things like the Mona Lisa, the Statue of Liberty or a portrait of his whole family!  This book is not only adorable but it uses a lot of alliteration that you can touch on throughout the book.  After reading this story, students had to think about what would they make if they could blow a magnificent art bubble?  Just look at what they came up with:

I took a picture of each student like they were blowing a bubble and then they used pink construction paper to design their bubble after writing about it!  I thought they turned out super cute!

If you would like a copy of our writing paper, please grab your copy here:

We have a bunch of days planned with lots of fun activities.  I will be posting them (hopefully) every day or every other day as I get pictures uploaded.  My students look forward to what tomorrow has in store and the activities help to "curb" the last day blues.  

I would also like to add that Charity Preston over at The Organized Classroom Blog has encouraged bloggers to take the 5 Star Blogger Challenge!  Are you up to the challenge?  Go check it out!