Wall of Happiness

The last week of school can be rough and  that's where I am right now.  What else is rough?  The week before spring break.  At our school, we went 9 weeks without a day off.  No snow days, in-services, or even half days.  By the time spring break rolls around, the students (and staff!) are done.  I needed a quick lesson that would be simple and hold their attention without them thinking they were doing school work.

I took inspiration from this post on Pinterest from ELA in the Middle.  I asked students "What makes you happy?"  I got responses ranging from video games to family to pizza.  Students then took their ideas to decorate a 4x6 index card for our Wall of Happiness.

After all the K-5 classes had decorated an index card, I glued the cards to larger pieces of construction paper.  This made it easier to attach to the wall.  6 large papers rather than 200 individual index cards makes a big difference when I will pull the staples from the wall.

Here's the final result:

Next year, I'm going to create a border and call it a Happiness Quilt.

Enjoy!

Things To Know After High School

This semester I am completing my high school internship.  One of my first projects, aside from schedule changes and senior meetings, is finding a way to entertain 75ish Juniors for 15 minutes.  Not difficult, right?  These are the kids not taking the PSAT.  After they are done with me, they will be listening to presentations from area technical colleges.  So I wanted to make the first part entertaining.  My supervisor recommended a youtube video.  So here's what I found.  Enjoy!