End of the Year Watermelon Day

Watermelon Day is one of the best days in school ever! Your kids are engaged and learning and you are having a blast.  What more could you want?  

Of course Watermelon Day has to be full of watermelon food and drink.  We have watermelon, watermelon juice, watermelon candy and have bubble blowing contests with watermelon bubble gum when possible.  I ask for donations from the parents and we buy as much as the money will purchase for us and sometimes that's just watermelon and rubber bands which is still a blast.

We learn a fun watermelon song by the Biscuit Brothers which you can find by clicking here.  A big warning that the song is a little cheesy and gets stuck in your head!

The best part of our day is our STEM project.  The STEM project tests the limits of force and motion using rubber bands and a watermelon.  You can see the video below.  After doing this lesson for a few years now I have a few suggestions for you.  The first suggestion is to buy your watermelon early so it's nice and ripe when it's time to do the project.  The second suggestion is to buy at least 6 bags of #64 rubber bands. Walmart sells them in the office supply section for around $1.50/bag.  The rubber bands that you use really matter.  You'll want ones that are thicker and stretch the diameter of the fruit.  My next suggestion is to place the rubber bands in the same spot on the watermelon.  In my video my rubber bands are spread out too much and it takes longer.  This brings us to my last suggestion.  Complete the experiment with at least two other adults. This way you can help each other out and switch out when your hands get tired.  If you do it by yourself you will have several blisters on your fingers.  The experiment takes between 1-2 hours.  If your students are younger than 2nd grade you may want to pre-load some rubber bands.

When we are done exploding the watermelon we save the seeds, rinse them off and have a seed spitting contest that turns into a measurement lesson.  With each lesson suggestion here you can tailor them to meet anywhere from kindergarten to high school.  Believe me when I say the adults are having just as much fun as the kids.

We read several different texts during our day.  When I taught first grade we used to read The Watermelon Seed.

In second grade we read Watermelon Day.

 While I was on Amazon it suggested the book below.  It looks like a great book, but I can't tell you for sure because I haven't previewed it.

Aside from all of the fun above, we also have fun with coloring, learning about the history of watermelons and how to pick the perfect watermelon.  Those activities can be found by click the picture below.

Feel free to send me an email if you have any questions!

End of the Year Camping Day

Who wants to go camping? Whether you are in a traditional classroom, homeschool classroom or just hanging out with friends camping inside while learning is a ton of fun.  As a teacher I LOVE Camping Day because you get a lot of bang for your buck.  You get a lot of bang for your buck because all you really need are blankets, books, flashlights, some lesson plans and a couple of cheap snacks and kids are engaged for hours learning.

Everyone loves a good read aloud and it's even better when it's done by flashlight.  You can read to the children and then send them back to their tents to read with flashlights and friends. This is a great way to have a reading lesson.  We love the book, "A Camping Spree with Mr. Magee"!

For writing I like to build a simple campfire out of a fan and tissue paper taped to the fan.  The fan rotates completely up so it blows the tissue up like flames.  I got it from Walmart.  I've seen this done with construction paper and logs too.  We use this to sit around and tell stories.  It's a great way to get speaking and listening standards into a fun writing lesson.

Tents are simple.  Everyone just brings in old blankets and uses whatever furniture, backpacks and other materials we have to construct tents.  My rule in the classroom is that it has to be open around the bottom so that I can see everyone.  You can construct these during science or math and make it into a lesson on engineering or measurement.

For treats I like to make S'mores bags.  It's just a mixture of Honey Grahams, mini marshmallows and chocolate chips.  You could teach Science with this and do mixtures.  If you want to explore chemical changes you could bring in a toaster oven and make traditional S'mores.  Just make sure the fire marshal is far away that day.

Aside from all of the fun mentioned above I also have fun print and teach activities that I created for the day.  If you need more materials click on the picture below.