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Thursday, May 26, 2016

GoNoodle Day!


It is very bittersweet to be leaving the classroom at the end of this week for the foreseeable future, as I enter the world of coaching. So, in an effort to not be a baby and cry all week, I am going to make our last week of school epic. We are having a science day, where we will do tons of science experiments all day long. I also posted recently about a really fun tech activity that is totally going to knock it out of the park. And finally, my most recent brainchild... GoNoodle Day!

If your class is anything like mine, they could do GoNoodle all. day. long. And now, they can! I am devoting an entire day to GoNoodle fun. Now, I don't think even my little firsties have enough energy to actually do GoNoodle all day long, so I have paired some academic and some just plain fun activities to go along with some of our favorite GoNoodle activities.

Below are the links to the two (free!) documents I'll be referencing as I describe our day-o-fun:

Lesson Plans- http://bit.ly/1WYNlgn
Activity Templates/Worksheets- http://bit.ly/1WYNe4w

In no particular order...

1. We LOVE Koo Koo Kangaroo. Neil is my kids' favorite (I think it's the mustache, sorry Brian), and they love his T-Rex arms in Dino Stomp.
After we show off our Dino Stomp skills, I am going to do a read aloud of one of my favorite books to read aloud: Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs by the brilliant Mo Willems. Predictions, drawing conclusions, maybe even a little inferring thrown in, and a whole lot of laughter.

2. Those Kidz Bop kids know how to work it. And we love flailing around acting like we are working it too. They have three great songs with fun summer themed videos and dancing, and by golly on GoNoodle Day I might just play all three! Summer, I Love It, and Everybody Talks.
After dancing our little hearts out, we will sit down to rest and write and/or draw about what we like to do in the summer, using an information web to organize our thoughts (included in the free pdf listed above).

3. Run With Us really gets my future Olympians moving, and on GoNoodle Day we are going to practice the Long Jump. Afterwards, we are going to do some jumps of our own, and measure our distances. In partners, students will take turns jumping, then measure the lengths of their jumps (using standard or nonstandard units of measurement, whatever is applicable for your students). T-chart included for keeping track of jump measurements.


4. Moose Tube's "It's Not Hard" actually is quite hard, but we always love a good challenge. After practicing a few times, we will reflect on the past year and write about things that used to be hard, but aren't anymore!

5. Maximo always makes me laugh, but my kids never get his jokes. I make them watch him anyway, because yoga = peace. And peace is good amongst 29 first graders. On GoNoodle Day we will practice Willow Willow with Maximo, then read and discuss the classic The Giving Tree. It will be a good opportunity for some quiet, calm, down time. Namaste.

6. Next are a couple of Happy options. The YouTube channel and the Zumba channel both have dancing videos for the song Happy by Pharrell Williams. I'll probably go with the YouTube option because of the Minions. These kids and their Minions...

After dancing and getting happy, we will write about what makes us happy.



7. Koo Koo Kangaroo, we are coming back for more! Another favorite is Just Kidding. We are pretty sure that Brian does actually know how to count to four, but we have fun with this one anyway. After doing JK, we are going to have a joke party. I bought this set of jokes from TpT - https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/JOKE-OF-THE-WEEK-2010022 - and can't wait for my kids to read them together. I can hear the roaring laughter already! If a joke set isn't in your budget (apparently my TpT budget is endless), you could find some online and project them, or have the kids write their own! Those are sure to be terrible. But will make you laugh in a totally different way!

8. Finally, an art activity! Don't worry, I would never make you get out the paints in the last week of school. That would be plain crazy. This one only requires glue and paper. And when you are done, if this is your last gluing activity for the year, you can do the always cathartic practice of dumping the whole tub of glue sticks/bottles into the trash can!

For this activity, we will start with a Flow calming exercise called Rainbow Breath.

The kids will then make a rainbow paper garland. I found a great tutorial here - http://www.minieco.co.uk/folded-paper-garland/ - and while I haven't actually tried it myself yet, it seems doable! There is always the possibility of ending up with a Pinterest fail, but hey, it'll be good fine motor exercise!


I hope your kids love GoNoodle Day! I can't wait for ours!

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