Concerts, Pirates, and Summer

I have blogged about this activity before.  I wasn't going to do it again this year, because it does require the waste of Band-Aids, which are a commodity by the end of the year, ya know. But when the apostrophes kept ending up in the wrong places and I started to say "Remember when we operated on the contractions...." and I realized that was last year's class, we did some quick surgical procedures. We divided up as surgeons and assistants, got our scalpels (scissors) ready, surgically removed the os from the nots, reattached the words, and stuck Bandaids on in place of the removed letters.

 

 

Now the Cool Cats can go to second grade remembering where to put the apostrophes:).

 

First Grade Dance Party

 Speaking of Cool Cats, the king of all Cool Cats, "Dan, Dan, the Guitar Man"(otherwise known as Daniel Justin Smith) made a return visit for the entire first grade and brought his kick drum and guitar for an outdoor concert. He shares his love of music with kids around the state, and we were lucky enough to have a surprise concert brought to our back door during one of the last days before summer break. And it happened on one of the days we (I mean the kids:) REALLY needed a break! The firsties danced their little hearts out and ran around a little and picked up a few sticks, had a great time.

The ending days were fun and full of celebrations.

of

 We had a water party for selling pizza dough. We had a water party for AR rewards. We had a game day, a movie day, a clean up day, and a pirate day. And through it all, we did learn a little too.  But let's face it. By day 150, 175 the kids are finished and it is all about the friendships and the anticipation of summer.

 


 
              
Pirate day was full of ocean activities, as well as some interesting facts about Blackbeard.  We even learned a little about Ocracoke, one of my very favorite places in our state. (For those of you traveling there this summer, there is a pretty awesome little pirate museum there in town.) 

 Love the costumes!!

 
 
One last hurrah for our favorite character this year, Pete the Cat. One of our students drew this giant poster for Kaleidoscope, and made a design for T-shirts, which were given out on awards day.

 

(video below of our talent show performance of "Pete the Cat: Rocking in My School Shoes")

 The class wrote these letters of advice to the current kinders and read them to partners. I thought they were quite precious:)

 Goodbye to this year's sweeties. I hope summer is full of warm memories and happy times. After 180 days, I feel like they are all part mine, and I miss them already.  Stay safe...

The energy was almost visible as they headed out the door:)....

 LOVE TO YOU ALL!!!! HAPPY SUMMER!