Last Day of Third Grade

    Friday was our last day of school, and it also marked my last day as a third grade teacher.  It was very much bitter sweet.  I shed a few tears as we all waved the kids goodbye, and a few more were shed as I walked away from my completely packed up and empty classroom.  As much as I will miss my third graders, I am looking forward to my new position as a kindergarten teacher.  My new team and I have already started talking about next year's plans, and my head has been spinning with new classroom arrangements and themes.  But before I get too far ahead, I wanted to share with you what my class has been up to.

    The study of folktales was our last reading unit of the year.  The kiddos, and myself, greatly enjoyed these stories.  We spent a couple of weeks learning about the different types of folktales- how to recognize them and what specific elements would be included within the stories.  We even tried writing our own adaptations of fairy tales.  Those stories were so fun!  My kiddos did a great job.  The students' final project was to create a brochure on a folktale of choice that included lessons learned, character traits, discussion questions (with an answer key), important events, and pictures.  Each student did such a great job with this project.  They worked hard and the final projects were breathtaking.

   I was really impressed with how hard my students worked.  This particular student, took a lot of time coming up with a lesson that could be learned from Cinderella.  She came up with the conclusion that "we need to be nice to people or we will get our revenge."  She even had lots of proof from the text to support her lesson!

   

   Our final big project of the year was a thank you gift to our parents.  I always struggle with how to handle Mother's Day and Father's Day.  My district's students are never in school during Father's Day, so usually Mother's Day is celebrated but then Father's day is not.  This year I decided to try something new.  The kids and I talked about how to handle this situation, and it was decided that we would try to do a combination gift for our parents.  I loved how they turned out!

  We spent a couple days talking about how important our parents are and all of the wonderful things they do for us: cooking, cleaning, driving us places, etc.  It was then mentioned, by a student, that parents do all of these things because they love us! I think this is a lesson that most of us learn after high school, and honestly, for most of these kiddos maybe it won't even stick or make an impression of just how lucky we all are to have someone that supports us.  But, it is never a bad thing to remind them of that.  

    After brainstorming ideas, the kiddos wrote a letter to their parents thanking them for specifics to their lives.  I had so much fun reading these letters.  They were heart-felt and honest. One of my favorite lines from a letter said "Thank you for always putting me first even when you could have done other things like becoming the president!"  AAA!!!  Isn't that sweet?  

   These letters were handwritten, decorated, and then laminated.  We didn't stop there!  Students decorated mini flower pots, planted a flower and put together a bookmark for their parents.  It was so fun, and the students were so excited to bring these home and give them as a gift.  Take a look at how nice these parent projects turned out!

One of the decorated pots.  Unfortunately, I was not on top of things,
and the flowers were not growing yet when the kiddos brought them home.  

Student thank you letter and poem bookmark.  We included
a student photo on the back of the book mark.

    The poem bookmarks are available in my TPT store.  They are a FREEBIE!  I did spend a lot of time writing this poem, so please don't take credit for yourself.  Thank you!

Have a wonderful summer!

-Heidi