A Peek at My Last Week of School + Giveaway news!!

It's finally here! The last week of school! I'm (Kristen) linking up with Mrs. Laffin's Laughings to share a peek at all the fun we have planned to wrap up the school year.

While everyone is at home, enjoying Memorial Day, we will launch our new-ish blog by kicking off my 1,000 TPT Follower giveaway! Check in tomorrow to meet my two new collaborating bloggers, see all the awesome prizes you can win, and to enter! Here's a peek at the awesome Teacher-Authors who have donated prizes:

We've been counting down the school year A to Z (freebie on TPT), and Tuesday is Water Fun Day! We are going to spend the afternoon outside playing water games. On our list are: the infamous water bucket relay (with holes in the buckets, of course!), a SpongeBob relay (where they use car wash sponges to fill a bucket), Elimination (soaked sponge style), a back-to-back water balloon race, and of course, a water balloon toss. It's going to be a blast! I can't wait!

Tuesday is also the day we will write letters to our favorite teachers. Since my fifth-graders are leaving our school "forever," we like to do this at the end of each year so they can thank a teacher who has been important to them. My favorite part is getting to pass the letters out to teachers when they finish. There's nothing like someone popping into your room unexpectedly to tell you that you are some child's favorite teacher!

Xtraordinary Awards Day means we will be making Deb Hanson's Together We Soared Awards. I can't wait to see what awards they come up with for each other! We've come a long way this year, from a class that seemed completely checked out in the first week of school to a group who will actually be able to come up with a nice award for whoever they draw.

Thursday is Year-End CleaningDay. One of the perks of teaching fifth grade is that they can definitely help with all of the year and pick up and clean up duties. Last year I used these free Cleaning the Classroom Stations from Wise Guys, and it went really well. I'll probably do this again, or some variation of it. They will also be taking all of their personal things home Thursday so that in case when someone forgets something, they will be here to get it Friday and I won't be throwing their things away have to save them and treasure them forever.

Friday is the big day! Z stands for Zip Into Summer, and we are surprising our kids with a barbecue outside. We have secretly planned the entire thing over the last couple of weeks, and have parents bringing in sides and desserts to go with the burgers and hot dogs the fifth-grade team will be bringing. Apparently, a couple of their parents have let slip that there is some sort of surprise on the last day of school, but so far as we know, no students know what the surprise is yet!

After the barbecue, we will do end of the year awards. We are using my End of the Year Student Awards to give out academic awards and some fun ones to make sure everyone gets an award. We've invited all the parents to come for the awards, and when that's over, we will do a parade through the hallways of the school with all of the "underclassmen" cheering on our fifth-graders. The parade leads out the front entrance of the school where we blow bubbles and send them off to middle school!

There'll probably be a movie and some Summertime Feud in there somewhere, too. That's it for this week packed full of fun! I'd love to hear how you are wrapping up the school year!