DECOR:
For the decor I shopped at several places but the prices were reasonable. Especially since I will reuse these items I bought.
- Window Black Out: Home Depot - I purchased a painting plastic drop cloth. I have a whole wall of windows so I got the 50ft x 10ft.
- Black Light Reactive Tape: I got this on Amazon.com and it came with several colors.
- Black Light Reactive Balloons: I hung these from the ceiling as decor. They glow really well.
- Black Lights: 3 Fluorescent Black Light Fixture: Party City
- Party Lights: These are not a must, but it added to the atmosphere.
- Glow Glasses: Even though the glow sticks died after the first day, I collected the attachment pieces from the kids so I can reuse them for my class next year. That is a huge money saver!
- Neon Posters: I got these from The Dollar Tree. I cut them in half and used blue tape to create the giant " GLOW DAY" letters for the main wall of my classroom. I also cut them into speech bubbles and clouds and wrote fun little "glow" messages on them.
CONTENT:
I decided to do a glow day classroom transformation to review our reading, math and grammar concepts for the year. For the content I used all Toothy Task Cards from Lucky Little Learners and I printed them on Astrobrites neon paper so they would glow in the black light. That was basically all I used for our review. I love these cards because they have a self check feature on the back. This way, there wasn't much grading to be done.
You can use any task cards for this depending on the content you want to review and or teach for Glow Day(s).
ACTIVITIES:
Glow Introduction:
To begin a glow day classroom transformation extravaganza, you can watch a Mystery Doug video about how things glow in the dark. We watched that video and we had a discussion in which many great questions were asked about plants and animals that glow.
Text Evidence:
Then I partnered the kids up and gave them a reading passage where they needed to "tag" their answers with neon Post-It flags to cite their evidence.
Because of the black lights, neon tags and glowing passages, the engagement was unbelievable. If I did this same activity without the glowing atmosphere, it would not have had the same effect.
Fast Finisher:
I also had a noun activity for the kids to complete as they finished their tasks early. I hung a set of picture cards around the room and they were backed on neon paper so they would glow. The children needed to write one noun they saw within the picture. They wrote their answer on their recording sheet.
Tic Tac Toe Sequencing Events:
Sequencing is an important skill in elementary school and I needed to make sure I was giving my students tons of practice. For this activity. I split my students up into four groups and made two tic-tac-toe boards on my whiteboard. Two teams would play each other on one board and the other two teams would play each other on the other board.
Next, every student got a communicator/plastic sleeve with a sequencing reading passages printed on neon glow paper. If you do not have these plastic sleeves, you can just laminate them. I wanted to be sure I got simple reading passages for my students with a quick way to check the answers for each child.
Here are the rules of the game:
1. Every student must work independently reading their passage and putting their events in order.
2. When they are finished, they get their passage checked by the teacher. (Be sure you have an answer key handy.)
3. If they get their answers correct they may either put a mark on the board for their team OR erase one mark from the other team. If they are not correct, they must fix their answers and get rechecked.
4. The student erases their board and gets a new passage.
5. This goes on until one team on each board wins. You can just put tallies and continue playing or switch teams.
Free Write Time:
For a glow day classroom transformation you can have a free write time! During our free writing time I had my students write in their writer's notebooks with secret coding pens. These pens glow wonderfully when the kids shine the lights on them.
Center Activities:
For all of these activities, the children needed to answer a question correctly on the task card before they got a turn. That was the routine for each center so the children knew the rules before they began.
1. Jumbo Kerplunk:
I taped the ends of the sticks with the extra glow tape I used for the decor around the room. I also purchased some glow ping pong balls for the inside of the game. You can also put glow tape on the balls that come with the game if you do not want to buy glow ping pong balls. If you cannot get the Kerplunk game you can certainly use any other game that glows, or adapt a game you already have so it glows by adding glow tape or cards.
2. Jumbo Jenga:
For this center game I used the neon tape on the edges so the blocks of the game would glow in the black light. The kids would take turns answering questions and pulling blocks.
3. Target Practice:
I drew a target on my dry erase board with a dark marker and bought some suction dart guns at The Dollar Tree. You do not need to use these guns but you can use anything that will stick to the target. My students wanted to keep track of the points earned (extra addition practice) but you do not have to.
4. Bottle Flip:
For this center I saved four small gatorade bottles and filled them about 1/3 with water. Then I poured a sprinkle of glow powder into each to make them glow. Of course the children needed to answer questions correctly before flipping!
5. Flip Tac Toe:
On my back table I made a tic-tac-toe board out of glow tape. Then I marked some neon plastic cups with two different colors on the bottom. The kids needed to flip their cup until it landed up-right. Then they got to place their cup on the board.
6. Slam Dunk:
For this center I used plastic neon cups with point values written on them. The kids shot light weight neon pool balls into the cups.
Although these are the six centers I used, there are so many other ideas you can use for neon games.
I hope this post gave you some suggestions if you are planning a glow day classroom transformation for your classroom. As always, feel free to email me any questions and tag me in any glow day posts! Happy teaching.
Kelly
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