End of the Year Linky Party!!

This is what happens when you sit down after a long day (and a baby causing kidney and nerve pain in your back) and put up your swollen feet to catch up in blogland. I write 3 posts in one day. :)

What's the Buzz is hosting an End of the Year linky party! What fun things do YOU do for the end of the year??

I've done a number of things the past 4 years... and honestly I don't always feel like I'm doing enough. But don't we *always* feel that way?? ;) My first year teaching, my friend and I got adventurous with our 1st graders and taught them how to play kick ball (our PE teacher refused to teach them for some reason) and we had a class on class kickball game! Funny that that's really all I remember from my very first last day of school... haha!! Our last day of 2nd grade (my next year) consisted of movies, a read in (with sleeping bags and pillows), and a cookout - hot dogs cooked on the back of my husbands pick up and everything! Lol! We also did ice cream sundaes to wrap up our last day! It was very very fun!!

My past two years in 3rd grade have continued to consist of a movie day combined with read in (this really helps me wind down and it's nice to just *breathe* right before that last stretch...) and also of making memory books - I print out pictures from our year and they cut and paste and craft their own memory books which they can turn around and get autographed. They love this and I think it's a great opportunity for the kiddos that can't afford a yearbook. PLUS, it's all about *our* fabulous class and no one else! I've also brought donuts for us to eat together for breakfast! (They really love that one!) I usually do a slideshow on the very last day (which my pregnant self might not be able to handle this year, especially since I'm leaving the school), but I might push that up to awards day... We will see!

School wide we have field day, awards day, then our end of the year parties... Our end of the year parties consist of wet bounce houses! While the kids love them, it's really hard to get them back under control for the rest of the afternoon, haha!! It's a great memory that always lands on our class website, in the slideshow, and in memory books. :)

This year I'd really like to do something a little different and I was already throwing the idea of a luau around... then I stumbled on this post in this linky party and fell in love!! It's like I was destined to find this post and solve my dilemna. See?? This is why I *LOVE* linky parties!!! :)