The Force Was With Us on May the 4th!!

This year's celebration DID NOT disappoint!  Each year I try and celebrate International Star Wars Day, which is on May the 4th!  I know this is my "thing", since I've been a Star Wars girl all my life!  I'm happy to say I am a member of the Class of 77'.  This has nothing to do with high school.  This, in Star Wars land, means that I was actually there, in 1977, to see the movie!  It was so fabulous, my mother let us all see it TWICE!  This was a BIG deal in the 70's, as no one could really afford to see a movie twice!  However, there is so much you can actually do that even if you are just familiar with Star Wars, you could run a successful day!  

Everyone needs some Star Wars in their life-a mug, a shirt, and some fun friends!! 

Let's Get Started!  

First, this was the PERFECT time for me to throw in a celebration for ending the FSA, Florida's version of State Testing!  My kids were totally wiped out after two days of testing.  So, today's celebration offered a wonderful chance to decompress and do something fun!  So, we started with a fun math that was easy yet worthy of a grade!  Check out what we did here!  This math idea would be one of the easiest ways that you can include this celebration into your classroom!  

Another great way to include this celebration into your classroom would be to add a touch of art!  This year, we added Symmetrical Aliens to our activities!  These are super simple to do and can be done with almost any theme!  Simply fold a piece of paper in half and have students draw 1/2 of their alien ON THE FOLD!  Once they finish, have them trace this design in crayon.  

Next, fold their alien into the inside of the paper and rub this line with a pencil on it's side.  They need to rub HARD!  Once you are done rubbing, open it up again. 

You will have a very light line.  Trace over it, and, you have a perfectly symmetrical alien!  Add any other details and color it in!  

These came out so great!  

Again, I kept with the tradition of letting the Wookie Win! This game is so fun and plays like a Jeopardy game.   It would be super easy to create because I can't share this one due to trademark issues.  The questions focus on review and you could even play this game without the fancy PowerPoint!  Just think of some fun questions from each category that you teach and go for it! 

It isn't a Star Wars celebration unless you have an tasty treat!  This year I went with TIE-fighters and Wookie Cookies!  Both of these were super simple!  Each child needs some Oreos or other cookies, a marshmallow, and some frosting!  They just put the frosting on the marshmallow and add the Oreos on the end!  Yum!  Our new treat was Wookie Cookies!  I put some chocolate frosting in a ziplock and cut a very small hole in the tip.  The kids used this to put the frosting on a chocolate chip cookie!  Then they added some edible eyes!  So cute and tasty too!  

It was a totally fun day and a truly great way to celebrate our success at the end of testing!  I hope you enjoyed International Star Wars Day and, if you have never celebrated, I hope it inspires you to try your own celebration!  Let me know what you do, too, in the comments!  And, May the 4th Be With You!  

Pin for Later!  

Five For Friday: May the 4th Be With You and a Contest!

This week is a week of appreciation for teachers everywhere! Gifts, flowers, cool drinks,  and special lunches abound!  But it is also the week that I look forward to all year-because of International Star Wars Day on May 4th!  Here's the quick lowdown on how to have a GREAT May the 4th Be With You!    

Wear an awesome Star Wars shirt!  This is a must because it signals to all the Star Wars fans in the building that you know exactly what day it is!  Before I hit the front door I was told, twice, May the 4th Be With You!  While walking around the halls in the morning I was greeted with this same phrase over and over!  Whenever and wherever I went, we were one with The Force because of my shirt (we are a uniform school).  

Get some really great music going!  I found this gem on YouTube! One hour of musical greatness!  And, honestly, the kids really enjoyed listening to it-for real!  

Get some great curriculum activities.  There is no reason you can't jazz your curriculum up with real activities tied to a Star Wars theme.  I made the paper on the left as their math warm-up.  They still worked on their math projects for area and perimeter.  The picture on the right is a Webquest I found on TpT by Mrs. Tech.  It was simple and easy, but best of all, I could use it as a close read.  This activity actually gave me a good idea of how to start using my Kindles in a variety of ways!  

Play a great game!  This is one I thought up last year and just adjusted for this year.  It is a Jeopardy style game.  However, the idea is based on subtracting points instead of gaining points so that the Wookie can win!  They LOVED it!  (Due to copyright, I cannot post this online. )

Make some great Star Wars themed treats!  The first one is a tie fighter.  Super simple-Chocolate Graham Crackers, a marshmallow, and some frosting.  Simply put frosting on the end of the marshmallow and put the Graham Crackers on!  Super simple!  For the light sabers you buy rod pretzels and food coloring.  There is enough frosting left to then color it. Frost the pretzel rods and enjoy!  YUM!  

So, as you can see, this is an easy and fun way to celebrate International Star Wars Day!  Now, onto how we will appreciate you!  Teacher's Appreciation was or will be celebrated over the course of these two weeks!  I've joined with 9 other Teacher-Authors to celebrate YOU!  

Teachers truly do light the way!  So, click on the Rafflecopter and follow all 10 Teacher-Authors on their TpT store to have a chance to win a $50 TpT Gift Card!  It's that easy!  The contest is open from May 5th - May 7th, with the winner announced on Monday, May 8th!  Thanks for all you do!  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

May the 4th Be With You

Yes, it is International Star Wars Day and we celebrated with style!  I wore my Star Wars shirt to make the day festive and added a sign to my classroom door. 

In the morning we did some fun activities in language arts and math.  I shared some information about Star Wars and we talked about characters from a Star Wars Character Encyclopedia.  I felt it was really important to share some of the female Jedi Knights, and both boys and girls were very impressed. 

It wasn’t till the afternoon that we really had some fun!  At snack time we created light saber snacks.  Unfortunately, the food coloring I thought I had turned out to be only red, which meant we all had to have Sith sabers.  They were really easy to make-frosting, stick pretzels, and a tool to put the icing on with!  I let the kids create their own and they really had fun making them.

I also found these cute Honey Maid Star Wars crackers (BOGO) at my local grocery store.  They were really yummy and I could hear the kids talking about what characters they were eating!

After snack came our real activity-graphing our favorite characters!  This was perfect because we happen to be on our graphing unit right now!  I found this at Royal Baloo and it was easy to use.  The lines copied very light, so I had to darken the copies on the machine.  I created a Mimio lesson to go with the graphing activity (while I watched The Avengers on t.v.-I am a sci-fi geek and I know it!)

I also made a support page so that all of content that we needed was present.   The kids created the question to ask and then gathered their tallies. 

Once that was completed, they filled in their graphs. 

As a final step, they flipped over to the back of the paper and asked a question that a friend had to answer about their graph!

            Simple and fun to celebrate one of the greatest  “fun” holidays on the calendar.  Next year, I will be planning for more fun events, including a storm trooper to fill my door and Yoda ears for all!  I’ve got 4 more years in a row to come up with some fun stuff-May the 4^th be with me!!!

P.S.  Don't forget about the great TPT Sale happening on May 5th and 6th.  Enter coupon code THANK YOU at checkout to get 10% off the already great sale price of 20% off in my store!