ABC Countdown!

Holy macaroni!  I cannot believe we are starting our end of the year ABC countdown.  It seems like there is so much left to do!  Remember way back when on the first day of school and I was hyperventilating as the monsters made their way down the hall?!  Now I get sad thinking of sending my proteges on to someone else.  And then I start imagining a whole new class of monsters and the fact that they will be empty vessels that I must train and mold.  Holy macaroni that scares me.  And now this…

My first year of teaching I ran across the idea for an end of the year countdown of the alphabet.  I loved it.  (Sadly, I don’t know where I found this but thanks to whoever it was that inspired this!)  The alphabet is such a huge part of the kindergarten experience that it only seems right that we end our journey together by celebrating the letters that made us readers and writers and geniuses!  And we’re all about meeting those common core standards in the kindergarten smorgasboard!

My alphabet countdown is simple.  We start at Z and celebrate a letter each day.  For each letter we have one or two or three activities we do that day for the letter.  Here’s my list of activities:

Z-Zebra puppets (We use a template from DLTK and brown lunch sacks to make zebra puppets!)
Y-Yellow!  (We wear yellow shirts!)
X-X-change autographs (A friend who works for the YMCA donates t-shirts and we all sign each other’s t shirts!)
W-Where The Wild Things Are (we read the book and do a wild thing craftivity!)
V-Violet!  (We all wear purple!)
U-Umbrellas (we make umbrellas)
T-Thank You Notes (we write thank you notes to people who have helped our class)
S-Sunglasses day (We wear sunglasses!)
R-Read Aloud Day (we get as many people as possible to come read aloud to our class!)
Q-The Wedding of Q and U
P-Picnic (we have a picnic and eat lunch outside!)
O-Orange!  (we wear orange and make an ostrich!)
N-Noodle Newt!  (We make a newt using green noodles!)
M-Monkey!  (We make a monkey!)
L-Lion!  (We make a lion!)
K-Kite!  (We make kites and king crowns!)
J-Jump Rope!  (We go to the gym and jump rope!)
I-ICE CREAM!  (We have ice cream sundaes!)
H-Hat Day!  (We wear hats!)
G-Glamour and Glitter!  (Dress glamorously and play with glitter!)
F-Finger painting and fruit (we finger-paint and eat fruit….but not at the same time!)
E-Elephants!  (We use a template from DLTK Kids and a brown lunch sack to make elephant puppets!)
D-Doughnuts and dogs  (Mr. Greg feeds us doughnuts and we make a cute dog craftivity)
C-Cookies and Crazy Hair  (Everyone brings cookies and wears crazy hair!)
B-Bubbles!  (We blow bubbles!)
A-Apples!  (We eat apples!)