Classroom parties were always stressful. They always veered off schedule, included complicated activities and often ended up in a mess. I usually found that I saw more behavior during what should have been a fun time then I would have if we had just stuck to our regular schedule.
This year I wanted to find a way to make parties a success in my classroom. One of my alternative state strands is to have students participate in classroom decision making through voting. A lightbulb went off. What if I gave my students a choice in what we were doing? What if I provided materials to help them be successful?
Introducing: Party packs-the perfect solution! We have used this party pack several times a year with success. Our Earth Day Party was no exception. See below to see how I incorporated the party into my schedule without disrupting the day!
Our first step was to vote on activities. Party packs come with 3 different activities each across 5 categories. I like to let my students choose what they want to do during their party. This helps them learn about classroom decision making. We used these voting books and Bingo dotters to make our selections.
One note about my parties-I space it out during the day. Keep reading to see how I plugged activities in. Keep an eye out for the visual schedule featured in each photo. This was an easy way to help my students stay on track during the party.
My students use these graphing templates to discover what activity won in each category. This is an easy way to incorporate math into the party planning action. (PS any “The Office” lovers out there? I always want to wear my party planning committee t-shirt on the days we do the vote and graph activity)
Our first activity was reading the book of choice: “How Can We Protect the Earth?” This was the perfect way to help my students understand what Earth Day is and why we celebrate it. We stuck this book at the beginning of our calendar routine at 9 a.m. and paired it with this free Starfall activity.
Our second activity was the handprint craft. My OT helped us with this activity. Students had to color and cut their earth, then they painted their hands to make the handprints. We also used a response sheet to pair with the craft. My OT always comes for group at 10 a.m. on Thursdays, so we subbed this in for her normal group time.
We played Bingo right after lunch (11:30 a.m.) instead of doing our normal independent work centers. It was a great opportunity to work on play skills and I love how independent my students have become. Plus, they love racing for the reward of Skittles!
My SLP comes every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. and we typically do a literacy activity. She agreed to switch to make sensory bottles, which was awesome! Students got to choose between blue and green food coloring and white beads and silver glitter for additions. We worked on the core word of “put” and description words!
We have Adaptive PE every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 2 p.m. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we usually do thematic activities. It was easy to sub in the snack during this time block today. Also, it was the easiest way to wind down the day.
Think party packs could be the answer to your class? Check out all my listings in this bundle!