Ya’ll know how much I believe in making the most of everyday in the classroom. And how much I detest the “days left in the year” countdowns or the negative Monday posts on social media. BUT I do believe in making our classrooms a place of fun, learning and celebration! I firmly believe we must celebrate milestones big and small in our classrooms. That includes the end of the year. That’s why I have designed our end of the year countdown alphabet countdown to celebrate our year together while learning and having fun! Our alphabet countdown is a great bookend to our year because we start the year with ABC BOOTCAMP and learn the letters in order! Notice we’re NOT counting down the number of days but we’re celebrating our learning and our year together!
Click the image to download your freebie!
Our countdown works like this: we celebrate a letter a day starting with Z and counting down to A. Each letter has an activity or dress up day or snack! Some of the activities require very little in the way of supplies, some require the kids to dress up or wear something special and some of the activities I provide such as the food! We send home a letter and calendar to keep parents involved and informed so students can participate!
So here are some ideas for our alphabet countdown!
Z-Zebras! We make rainbow zebras!
Y-Wear Yellow!
X-X-change autographs! Everyone signs a t-shirt to exchange autographs! The YMCA donates our t-shirts so you can ask around or ask parents to send in a plain white t-shirt! We use Sharpies to sign our shirts. Place the shirts in a circle and have students rotate around the circle signing every shirt!
You can also use an autograph book to exchange autographs! Grab a free EDITABLE autograph book by clicking on the image!
W-Western Day-Dress like a cowboy or cowgirl!
V-Violet-Wear Purple!
U-Unicorns! Paint unicorns with our feet!
T-T-Shirt Day-Wear your favorite t-shirt!
S-Sunglasses Day! Wear sunglasses! I go to Wal-Mart and buy packs of sunglasses from the birthday aisle. You can get a pack of 6 glasses for a couple dollars! So any student who doesn’t have sunglasses will have a pair!
R-Rainbows, wear red and play rock and roll music! This year we will wear red and play rock and roll music in our class!
Last year a little guy made a rainbow shirt for rainbow day!
Q-The Wedding Of Q and U! We celebrate the wedding of Q and U with a ceremony, fancy clothes and cake!
Click the image to see a detailed blog post about our QU wedding and get some FREE resources for your own QU wedding!
P-Picnic day! Students bring a picnic lunch (or ask the cafeteria to prepare sack lunches!) and a blanket! Go outside for a picnic! Or if it rains, have a picnic in your classroom!
N-New Name Day! Everyone chooses a new name and we wear our new names on our nametags!
M-Mustache Day! Wear all things mustache!
L-lollipops and lions! Eat lollipops and make a picture of a lion!
K-kites and kings! Everyone wear a king crown and fly kites!
J-Jeans day! Everyone wear jeans!
I-Ice Cream Day! Make ice cream sundaes!
H-Hat Day! Wear a hat!
G-GLITTER BOMBS! Yes my class gets glitter bombed. Yep it makes a HUGE mess. Yes we call them glitter bombs. Yep we clean up our mess and take safety precautions (goggles and shower caps!). No there aren’t parent or custodian complaints!
Click the image above for a detailed post on our glitter bombs!
F-flyswatter painting! Students dip flyswatters in paint and SLAP their paper to paint! It’s messy so go outside! But if it rains, make a paint booth using shower curtains and paint inside!
E-Excercise! Randomly throughout the day I YELL “STOP! 20 Jumping Jacks…” or some other exercises!
D-Doughnuts! We fry doughnuts! We use canned biscuits. Keep the fire extinguisher handy and notify the office in case you set off the fire alarms! Open the biscuits and poke a hole in the middle of each one. Fry! Roll in sugar and cinnamon!
C-Cookies and crazy hair! We actually ask each child to bring in their favorite type of Oreos. And we buy some different varieties to make sure we have a variety of Oreos. Everyone tastes all of the different Oreos and then we graph our favorite!
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B-Beach Day and Bubbles! We wear shorts, flip flops, sunglasses, and tank tops and bring beach towels! (No swimsuits!) and go outside and blow bubbles!
A-Apples! Eat an apple! And you’re off to the next grade!
How do you celebrate the end of year? What are your alphabet countdown ideas? Leave your ideas in the comments section!
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