When I began my LTO at Centennial Central Public School for the last 6 weeks of the school year, I knew that I was stepping into a classroom that had seen a lot of upheaval and re-adjustments throughout the year. The kindergarten students experienced multiple changes in educators for a variety of reasons, and their classroom teacher – the one person who had been constant throughout the year – suddenly suffered an injury and needed to go on leave. Given that the students had been through so much during that year, I decided to make the last days of school as fun as possible and give them some of the experiences they had maybe missed out on due to multiple factors.
Enter in: the Last Days Chain. I took inspiration from a post I saw on Pinterest and created my version of special, fun days for the last 8 days of school. The parents in my classroom community were thrilled with the idea, and I knew that I would need their help to pull it all off! I notified the parents of the project through our bi-weekly classroom newsletter and said that I wanted to keep it a surprise for the students. I created the chain and then, at the end of each day we would cut off a link to find out what our next special day would be. I was completely overwhelmed by the supportive response and can’t wait to show you how it all turned out.
Day 1: Stuffy Day
This one was an easy choice because the students had been asking about bringing stuffies to school since the moment I arrived. Our only caveat was that the stuffy they brought needed to be able to fit into their backpack.
We had a sharing time at the end of the day where students could get up and show their stuffy to the class if they wanted. The students asked questions about the stuffy such as their name, where they got it, who gave it to them and why it was their favourite. I took pictures of all who shared and sent them to their parents which was a big hit for everyone!
Day 2: Messy Day
This day was probably my personal favourite because it gave permission to the students to explore multiple sensory activities that typically would not be allowed or desired in a classroom setting. The reason: they are incredibly messy! However, I also know the value of children exploring their world and, sometimes, making a mess. As long as everyone knew what the day was about – and we made sure to clean up after ourselves so that the custodian wouldn’t have to. I simply could not have pulled this day off without the support of parents as they supplied many of the materials needed to make these activities a success. I also required their support in allowing their child to get dirty! Here are the sensory activities that we had set out for the students to explore:
- Finger painting
- Oobleck
- Chia Seed Slime
- Glitter Art
- Shaving cream and Lego
- Muddy cars in the water table
Day 3: Bubbles and Chalk
We had such beautiful weather during my time at Centennial Central that I knew we had to take advantage of being outside. Enter our third special day “bubbles and chalk” day. These were two of the things that I had asked parents to donate and I was incredibly humbled by the response. These were materials that the students had not had much interaction with and they loved being able to spend some time outside with their classmates watching the bubbles float away and drawing some fun pictures on the pavement with the chalk. This was especially fun for one of our newcomer students as he had never experienced blowing bubbles before!
In fact, we had so much donated to our class for this day that we could invite the other kindergarten class in the building to join us outdoors for some extra fun.
Day 4: PJ and Pizza Day
This day was probably the favourite event of the entire last week of school, and it was wholly thanks to one parent in the classroom. In conversation with the original classroom teacher, I discovered that one of the parents was the manager of a pizza restaurant and had generously offered to provide pizza for the entire class free of charge at some point in the year. I reached out to that parent to see if they were still willing to do so and was met with the most generous answer.
This parent provided each child in the class two slices of either pepperoni or cheese pizza, a drink, and a small can of Pringles in their chosen flavour (we sent out a survey to parents to choose from). This parent also provided an entire small pizza with our choice of toppings for myself and my teaching partner.
This was an incredible day that was loved by everyone – all thanks to the generosity of parents!
Day 5: Movie Afternoon
This event was also one enjoyed by everyone where, instead of our usual math and center time routine, we put on a movie and had some snacks. Students were also allowed to bring stuffies or blankets to make the experience more comfortable if they so chose. We sent out a survey to parents with some movie choices so that we could have their input on what we should watch, and the winner was “Encanto”. A couple of parents also offered to provide snacks through individual bags of chips, popcorn, drinks and some fruit. We had a lovely, quiet afternoon together just having fun!
As a side note, this also provided me and my teaching partner with an excellent opportunity to get started on packing up the classroom.
Day 6: Be the Teacher Day
The premise of this day was simple – instead of me, the teacher, making the decisions about what would happen in our day, the students got to do it! I put our whole schedule in a slideshow with each decision I would normally make. For example, what would we do during our literacy time? Would we read a story? How would we spend the transition time between outdoor education and lunch?
Because my students were only in kindergarten, these questions were not 100% open-ended – I provided them with a few options to choose from and then we voted on which one they wanted to do more.
This was actually a little difficult for them to do, more so than I thought. When I expressed this to my teaching partner she suggested that it was because they enjoyed the things that I set out so much that they didn’t want to choose anything different!
Day 7: Ice Cream Day
This day was my personal favourite and another way to love our time outside! One of the parents on the parent council graciously offered to donate ice cream sandwiches and popsicles for our entire class! So, after the last recess of the day, we went outside with some blankets and our ice cream and just enjoyed ourselves – even us teachers got a little cool treat!
Day 8: Last Day Party!
This special day was our very last day of school and we had many fun things planned for the day! The students were so excited to come to school and see our classroom decorated for the occasion with balloons, streamers and colourful tablecloths. We sang our favourite songs, danced to our favourite videos, made “Last Day of School” and “Last Day of SK” crowns, had an award ceremony where each student received their own award and, most importantly, had a party with delicious snacks! We even had a visit from a classmate who had unfortunately been away sick for the previous couple of weeks.
All of the snacks were generously provided by parents and I couldn’t have been more humbled to see how much these parents enjoyed being part of the classroom. My biggest hope was to create an experience that these students would remember, and I am proud to say that I believe that I did just that!
