Afternoon or classroom dismissal. Who loves it? Who hates it? This time of the day used to be one of my most dreaded times of the day. It was chaotic and stressful and felt like we rushed out the door every day. I didn’t want that feeling of being rushed. The end of the day should be a time of fun and celebration and a time wrap up our day together.
So, what’s our solution for our classroom dismissal?
A DANCE PARTY! True story. We end every single day with a classroom dance party.
Here’s my philosophy: We work our students incredibly hard every day. We expect our students to show up and take risks each day. And guess what? THEY DO IT! And they do it incredibly well. Each day I am amazed at how hard my students work, the risks they take and the learning that we experience every single day. Even on the bad days, my students amaze me.
And because we work so hard and because our students meet those amazing expectations, I 1 million percent believe that each day should be celebrated. All of the learning, that growth, the risk taking, and the love that we share each day should be celebrated. I also want to send my students home on a positive, happy, excited note. I want my students to go home happy and excited so they love school (and I want them to come back the next day! LOL)!
How Does Dismissal With A Dance Party Work?
We celebrate our day with a dance party. We use Katy Perry’s “ROAR” and Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop The Feeling!” Turn the song all the way up. It’s loud. We rock out for our dance party! We switch our classroom LED lighting to flash and turn the classroom into a dance club! Everyone sings. We dance. As we’re dancing, I call students names. They bounce on trampoline. Then they go to their cubby and pack up. Four students are packing up at once. Everyone else is around the carpet singing and dancing. The four students who are packing up do so quickly and quietly because they want to come back to the dance party!!! As a student returns to the dance party,I call the next person to bounce and pack up! This system lets us celebrate our day and makes the packing up process so much for efficient and calm!
Closing Circle
When the dance party finished, and everyone packs up, we have a closing circle. Much like our morning meeting, we come together to end our day together. Our clasing circle is very fast and takes about 5 minutes. We quickly go around the cirlce and each child shares something they learned OR their favorite part of the day. Having this opportunity to share something from the day sends them home with something to talk about! After we share, I say: “GOODBYE MUSTACHES!”
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6 comments
Hello Greg! I LOVE this idea and plan to use in my kindergarten classroom next year. I had a few questions…what do you do about passing out papers that students would normally place in their folder at the end of the day during this time? Also, do you give students a limit on the number of bounces they get before they must go pack up? Again such a unique idea that I am really excited to try!
All the papers go in their cubby, so they grab it when they are packing up. They just get a few bounces and they all know it. You just have to set the expectation. Be sure to read up on how I use the trampoline for more info!
Thank you!!
Does their folder also go in their cubby? Do you have a system for checking folders?
Hi Taylor! We don’t have folders but yes everything goes in the cubby. It all goes home at the end of each day.
Thank you for responding! How do you communicate with parents and track behavior? Normally I have used a chart in folders for this. Interested to know what you do!