Time to CELEBRATE: End Of The Year Goodies & FREEBIES

Hello again!  It's Palma from KFUNdamentals.  Wow, the 4th of the month comes around so quickly!
I'm super excited to share my "End Of The Year Goodies" with you.  This post is jam packed with ideas because I won't be posting again back here until the 4th of July.  I hope you enjoy all of my End Of The Year ideas!   It's Time To CELEBRATE!!!

Celebrate With A Gift  for your pre-K, TK, Kindergarten, or 1st grade students:
Scented Play Dough: 

Home-made Play Dough in plastic baby food containers.

 Here is the recipe:

2 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 cup of salt
2 packages of unsweetened Kool-Aid powder (4 grams in each package)
2 cups of boiling water
3 tablespoons of oil

Mix flour, salt, and Kool-Aid together.
Add oil to the boiling water.
Mix with a spoon until cool enough to knead.
Knead to blend in the color and store in an
air-tight container in the refrigerator.

This is NOT food!  :)

I put mine in plastic baby food containers, but a Zip-Lock bag works too.  You can place the Zip-Lock back into a cute cello bag (find them at Michael's in the candy making section) and tie on a cute ribbon. I like to add a tag that says "This is not food" because it smells so good.  Imagine cherry flavored play dough or lemon flavored!  That's what I made.  :)

Celebrate With A Keepsake Crayon Candle Gift & Poem:  for your kindergarten, TK, or Pre-K families:  (You could do this for any grade, really.  It's basically a "good-bye" to this year's crayons.)  The poem is a FREEBIE:  Click  <HERE>   

We added a ribbon and the FREEBIE poem and
placed it in a small bag that the kids decorated.  

    IT'S A FREEBIE!!!      (View it on my blog:  click here)

~Have your students break and peel the paper off of their crayons.
~Peel the labels off of small baby food jars and fill them with the broken crayons.
(Tip:  I print the students' first names, cut them out, and glue them to the inside bottom of the jars with a glue stick so the names show through the glass below the jars.)
~Place a birthday candle in the center of each jar.  Just push it down in-between the crayons.  This is used as the wick and is 10 times cheaper than buying candle wicks.
~Away from the children (I have my room mother do this part at home), pour clear paraffin over the top to fill in the spaces between crayons.  It's super cute if some crayons poke out of the paraffin at the top. You can buy the wax at most grocery stores near the home canning section.  Michael's also carries large blocks of wax.
~Tie a ribbon around the neck of the jar and tie on the poem.  I usually roll the poem up because it's big.

Celebrate With a Song:
Another cool idea for the end of kindergarten a little ceremony or party to celebrate graduating from kindergarten and moving on to 1st grade.
Here is a cute song to help you celebrate.  The words go to the tune for "It's A Small World" and you can download the music from iTunes.  Search in the iTunes store for "It's A Small World Instrumental".  The link for the words and a printable version of the song (so you can make a big book) is RIGHT HERE or click on the image:

It's A Small,
Small, World!

Celebrate With Games:  I like to have the kids play a different game each day of the last week of school.  These games show them how much they have learned because they are all about the Common Core Skills that they have learned this year.  Here are the names of our favorite End Of The Year Games:

 I Have, Who Has: Numbers,  Number
Memory 0-30
Number Bingo 0-30
and Addition Memory Game.

They are all on my TPT store and on this blog post

Celebrate With Autographs So You Never Forget Your Friends:  
(We do this in place of a game on the last day.)
On the last day of school, they get to sign their autograph books.  I use my elephant puppet to let them know that I'll never forget them.  We make our autograph books by stapling paper (cut to 7"X7" and we add a construction paper cover.  Then, we glue on a die cut like a school house, a school bus, an apple or an elephant.  The kids love to have their friends sign their pages so they "never forget" one another.  :)

Celebrate With A Thank You Poem For Your Volunteers:  
And here are two FREEBIE poems you can attach to your parent volunteer gifts.  I gave them each a copy of the DVD that I made for Open House.  It included all of the special things we did this year.
Poem 1 for any volunteer:

Thank you for volunteering
In kindergarten this year (or you could say, "In Pre-K, Tk, 1st grade, etc. this year"
You made our class a better place
All because you were here!

Poem 2 for parent volunteers:

Thank you for sharing (child's name),
She (or He) is such a dear,
And thank you for supporting me
Throughout this busy year.

And if you missed my Open House Posts, you can check out how we celebrated our Open House here:
Open House part 1
Open House, the sequel
Open House, trilogy 
Open House, The Final Frontier

Visit & follow my blog:  "KFUNdamenls" ,  my Teachers Pay Teachers Store,  and my facebook page!

 OK, that's all for this "4th of the Month" post.
Next month I'll be posting on the 4th of July so MARK YOUR CALENDARS for the 4th!  :o)
I'll leave you with an inspirational quote:

In the mean time, remember to "Keep the FUN in the FUNdamentals!"