Cramming Extra Curriculum In

Who has a countdown going?  I do... its both exciting and a bit stressful, exciting because summer is a mere 32 school days away... stressful because this is the point in the year I realize I haven't hit a couple of science/social studies standards and its time to find a creative way to do it!

I teach in Virginia and for some reason Hawaii is one of our county's standards.  This year I decided to do a Hawaii week in my theme center.  Each day I shared a fact with the kids and had a corresponding activity.  On day 1, they had to get their suitcase ready for their Hawaiian Vacation!  I found a coloring template online for them to color in the different Hawaii state symbols.  They used this as patches.  Inside, they had a paper about the landforms, the flag and the fruit.  On Friday they made leis to take home!  In the computer lab on Friday they wrote about their Hawaiian Vacation and viola, they learned the standard and I got to use my social studies time to teach them about Australia :)  I thought it was a success!

I found the "patches" here... and the other printables came from my wonderful team members.

I have to be honest though, I would love to do a much better job at covering Hawaii next year!  That's why I love being a teacher, always room for improvement :)

Happy Teaching!

Annie