Clowning Around

My time in the first grade room came to an end on the 100th day of school. I didn’t realize that this was such a big deal, but every class was keeping count and celebrated in some way. It had been a busy week. The previous Thursday had been our Valentines Day party, which was the first one I’d hosted on my own. (It is a much different experience from the teacher’s point of view than it ever was from a parent’s perspective.) Then we had a four day weekend because of a Friday inservice and Presidents’ Day on the following Monday. This meant cramming five days of reading lessons into four for both weeks while also finding time to make posters for an upcoming school carnival and plan 100-day activities. Added to this was my desire to prepare the next week’s lessons for the returning teacher.

The carnival posters turned out simple, but cute, which seems to be becoming my mantra. I led the students sequentially through the steps of drawing a clown outline, then they filled in the details. The first picture shows a couple results before I added the carnival information at the bottom of each poster.

Digging through a file, I found a few cute things to do for our 100 day celebration and it ended up being a nice way to finish. Besides getting a coloring packet to work on in their spare time, I numbered 100 Reeses miniature candies and hid them around the room while the kids were having lunch. When they came in, they hunted for them and placed each one on a numbered paper. These became their snack at the end of the day. Then, for math, we made Fruit Loop necklaces sorted into 10 groups of 10 Fruit Loops according to color.

I will miss the simplicity with which young children are entertained. Why do we make life so complicated when we get older? It has been a privilege working with this group of first graders. They have taught me much.