After the stress of the test, there is often a sense of a relief in the air! However, as wonderful as that is, it can also send everyone off into a bit of a tailspin and as we know, trying to keep a group of kids calm and focused in the last few weeks of the school year can be quite the challenge!

I guess we can't blame them... they're mentally wiped, we're mentally wiped. No one really has the brain power to do anything too challenging, right? But then we don't want to let them loose with "free time" as that is a recipe for disaster.... am I right?!

Well the last few weeks after testing don't have to be all about crowd control and just trying to make it to the end, really! It is possible to actually have a calm classroom, to enjoy the time with your class and reflect on the good times and what they learned.  

2) The second way to get them feeling positive and calm at the end of the year, is to give them an opportunity to have an informal chat with their friends about their year together and their favourite memories, all while they are colouring these in. You could set up a "speed date" activity with the individual sheets before they're stapled into a booklet. Speed dating works by pairing students up at desk for a few minutes while colouring in and chatting, then every few minutes you can ring a bell where one person moves to a different desk so everyone can have a chat to more people in the room. This is a great way of bringing your community together once more and making good use of this relaxing colour-time!

I hope you have found some of these ideas helpful! If you want to learn more about these colouring pages, you can check them out here. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. I wish you a wonderfully relaxing and reflective end to the school year: let's do our best to make sure our students leave school on a high while keeping ourselves sane too!

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I believe how we finish the school year is just as important as how we start. By making the end a relaxing and reflective experience for our students I'm confident we'll leave them with fond memories and excited about the next step!

How are you planning on wrapping up the school year? Leave a comment below, I'd love to chat more!

As a self confessed perfectionist myself, I understand the struggles: as a teacher, I want that outstanding lesson observation (phew, what a relief it was for me when my school finally got rid of putting grades on our observations!), wanting the perfect classroom (I'd say I've accepted 90% perfection with that one) all while wanting to look put together at work. Let's not even start on this website and how much time I spend on making things look just right for you! So I totally understand my perfectionist students too - I know that they hate getting things wrong, but as we know, it can be unhealthy when all their self-esteem relies upon getting 100% in a test...

As it is testing season, there will likely be a lot of anxiety in the air. There is so much pressure on test scores but I believe we need to convey to our students that success doesn't come from academic achievement, it comes from how they feel about their mistakes. The problem is many of our students emotionally react to their mistakes rather than think about them logically.

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Here are a few conversations you have have with your "perfectionist" students to help put things into perspective:

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I truly believe if we make an effort to help our students gain a positive perspective when it comes to making mistakes, then they will gain the confidence to make mistakes and continue to improve, developing into lifelong learners!

What are some of the struggles your students have when it comes to making mistakes? Comment below, I'd love to talk to you more about this!

I'm a huge advocate for integrating art and creativity into my lessons! Sadly, many of us are struggling to fit the creatives arts into our hectic schedules these days with the increase in budget cuts and axing of the arts from the curriculum. 

However, art integration is something we should be fighting to include wherever we can as it is crucial for our students learning! Here's a few reasons why:
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• It helps embed learning as research states that each time a student applies information in a new and creative way, it is embedded further into their brain.
• It encourages healthy risk taking in your students as they have to think outside of the box to express themselves.
• It helps them discover new skills.
• It works as an excellent differentiation tool.
• Helps build collaboration with others and creates a sense of community as their work can be proudly on display for all to see.
• It's fun!

Art integration doesn't have to be hard or expensive, and you certainly don't need to be an artist to do it! Imagine how wonderful it would be if our students were able to express themselves creatively while still learning and embedding the curriculum in artistic ways!

Simply teach your unit as you normally would and get your students to write their poem out, but instead of stopping there they can express their poem in a range of creative ways. Here are some ideas to get you started!

2) Blackout Poetry:
Blackout poetry is another very simple idea! For this activity, students can tear out a page from an old book or even a newspaper. They can then read through and highlight words that make up a short poem. This is actually more challenging than you would think as their choice of words is limited, but it also exposes students to new words too! It's great that it can easily be differentiated by the complexity of the text you provide. The rest of the page is free reign for students to be as creative as they wish! Check out these examples below:

3) Poetry Art:
For this idea, you can give your students complete freedom as there is no base template to work from. They can start with a painting related to the poem's theme and then fill in the words of the poem wherever they like. This is idea for any particularly talented artists in your classroom!

4) Poetry Products:
This idea is adorable, but definitely for the shorter poems! Your students can find any object they like such as a pebble or shell as seen in the example below and then write or stick their poem on it. Alternatively they can even do a craftivity such as the paper ball seen here!
​These would look great displayed up on a "Poet Tree" in your classroom!

I hope this has given you some creative ideas for integrating art into your poetry units! Don't forget to download the free fingerprint templates from the VIP Area!

Thanks for reading this post :) If you found this valuable, leave a comment below or share it out!
I truly believe if we make an effort to integrate the arts into regular teaching units then our students will be able to learn more effectively, discover new skills and enjoy learning even more!

Which of these ideas caught your eye the most? Leave a comment below, I'd love to chat more!