Who doesn’t love a good party? Who doesn’t love to stay up until midnight ringing in the new year? I mean…we all love a good new year’s party! OK…honestly…who can barely make it to midnight to celebrate?! The new year is a time for new beginnings and it’s a perfect time to party with your class. Each year we have a new year’s party on our first day back to celebrate the new year and our return to school! Our new year’s party comes with balloons, hats, confetti, noisemakers, and a toast to ring in the new year!
We order our decorations and supplies from Amazon and Oriental Trading and Party City!
We toast the new year with sparkling grape juice!
We watch the Times Square Ball Drop and do our own countdown to the new year!
New Year’s Party Snack
No New Year’s party is complete without food. If we didn’t have food, Martha Stewart would be so sad. So, of course, we make a Happy New Year snack to recreate the big ball drop! We use a cupcake, a coffee stirrer, and doughnut holes. Sometimes, you get lucky, and the “ball” even slides down like the real ball drop!
New Year’s Adjectives
We do an adjective lesson where each student comes to the SmartBoard, and the class describes their friends! I write the adjectives on the board and snap a picture. Each child gets a picture to take home. This is a great way to start the 2nd half of the year by boosting everyone’s confidence and strengthening the bond of your class. This is a great community-building activity!
And finally, we make our class promise. We share everything we promise to do to make the new year awesome. At the end, we all sign our names and display our class promise as a reminder of how awesome we are and can be!
January Green Screen Idea
We love creating green screen pictures in our classroom! Here’s our idea for the new year! We have a blog post linked at the end of this post with directions on how to do this!
New Year’s Day/Disco Ball Art Project/
This is the perfect art project for your class’s new year celebration. Torn paper disco balls. I traced a paper plate to make the circle. The kids tear gray construction paper to fill in their circles and then tear the white paper to make the string. Just add glitter, and you have a disco ball!
New Years Resolutions And Comprehension
Not only do we party hard for the new year, we also work hard as we celebrate! We use our Read It Up: Squirrel’s New Year’s Resolution creation to learn about resolutions, come up with resolutions and write about our resolutions!
We start by making predictions about the story based on the front cover and title!
After reading the story we complete a story map and discuss the problems and solutions in the story!
Next, we brainstorm resolutions and make a class chart!
Finally, the students decide what their resolution will be, and they write & illustrate their New Year’s Resolution!
Happy New Year Sensory Ideas
Check out our Happy New Year creation for graphic organizers, writing, craftivities, and math and literacy centers in blackline and color!
Grab these resources to celebrate the new year in your classroom!
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