You know early in my teaching career I use to think, "Why do I need to plan anything for a holiday party? I will just have the parents come, bring food and the kids, parents and I will eat and be merry." Well, after several holidays of eating and being merry with a classroom of 27 2nd graders and their parents, I came to realize it was chaos. And not organized chaos. TOTALLY CRAZY WHO IS REALLY IN CHARGE OF THESE KIDS CHAOS! I found that for me and my students to really have fun and enjoy the holiday: I needed a plan. Now I don't want to not have a "party" for my kids or to be the teacher who always finds the learning in everything and doesn't allow her kids to have fun but I found that when we "do" something rather than have just "free" party time, we do have fun! The kids like it better and I like it better. I mean let's face it: don't they run a muck a lot outside of school? When do they really have organized fun? In school that is when! I then started creating really fun activities for them to "DO" during our "parties". Fun for them and I can keep my hair and nails (visualize me pulling out my hair strand by strand and biting my nails as the parents let their children run around the room jumping chairs and screaming while we both look at them wondering who is in charge at this moment). Since Science investigation takes time (let's face it we put it on the back burner most of the time because it takes time we never have) I use this "party" day to have an investigation. I build it up for days to come: the kids can't wait for the day as they get so excited to see what it is going to be about! I know once you try it (investigation "parties") you and your students will see how much fun it is and how much better it is than giving them all that free time to grind cheetos into your carpet and shove icing up their noses. Follow the link to my TPT to get the investigation. While there check out the Halloween one too! I know once you go to Science "partying" you will never turn back to those "let's see how much junk food we can eat and meaningless movies we can watch parties" again!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Beating-Hearts-A-Conversational-Heart-Valentine-Scientific-Investigation-1084585
