Make the most of the end of the year with our alphabet countdown ideas and Backwards Bootcamp! Ya’ll know how much I believe in making the most of every day in the classroom. And how much I detest the “days left in the year” countdowns or the negative Monday posts on social media. But I do believe in making our classrooms a place of fun, learning, and celebration! I firmly believe we must celebrate milestones big and small in our classrooms. That includes the end of the year. That’s why I have designed our end-of-the-year BACKWARDS BOOTCAMP to celebrate our year together while learning and having fun! Our BACKWARDS BOOTCAMP or end-of-the-year countdown is a great bookend to our year because we start the year with ABC BOOTCAMP and learn the letters in order!
We have compiled all of our ideas and activities into our Backwards Bootcamp resource! This has everything in 1 place to make planning for your end-of-the-year countdown easier!
Alphabet Countdown Ideas: BACKWARDS BOOTCAMP
Click the image to download your freebie!
Our countdown works like this: we celebrate a letter a day starting with Z and counting down to A. Each letter has an activity, a dress-up day, or a snack! Some activities require very little in the way of supplies, some require the kids to dress up or wear something special, and some of the activities I provide, such as the food! We send home a letter and calendar to keep families involved and informed so students can participate!
And yes, it is a COUNTDOWN, which means it goes backward. Z to A is an alphabet countdown! A to Z is not a countdown.
Each day during the morning meeting, we make a word web of words that have the letter and/or sound! We use this time to work on segmenting, blending, spelling sounds, etc! It’s a fun and easy way to pull in phonics! Then the students work on handwriting and word writing. This means we’re keeping our countdown fun and aligned to standards (SHHHH Admin likes that…just sayin’…)
We also make a hat for each letter. This is more phonics practice plus language building, vocabulary, and fine motor skills! Plus, they’re fun and a great way to keep the magic going at the end of the year. I mean…how cute are these?!
These exact hats are only available in our TKS Bootcamp manual! This is a physical book! If you purchase the manual, you also get the digital files, so you have immediate access to the files as well!
Alphabet Countdown Ideas
Here are some of the ideas that we use in our alphabet countdown! Our Backwards Bootcamp resource has over 100 ideas!
Z-Zebras! We make rainbow zebras and eat zebra cakes!
Y-Wear Yellow!
X-X-change autographs!
Everyone signs a t-shirt to exchange autographs! Ask families to send in a plain white T-shirt! We use Sharpies to sign our shirts. Place the shirts in a circle and have students rotate around the circle, signing every shirt!
You can also use an autograph book to exchange autographs! There is an included alphabet book in our Backwards Bootcamp resource!
W-Western Day or Wacky Day
R-Rainbows, wear red and rainbow, eat Rice Krispy treats and play rock and roll music!
Q-The Wedding Of Q and U!
We celebrate the wedding of Q and U with a ceremony, fancy clothes, and cake!
N-New Name Day!
Everyone chooses a new name and we wear our new names on our nametags!
M-Mustache Day and McDonalds
Wear all things mustache! And we get the kids McDonald’s Happy Meals! Yes, we get each kid a Happy Meal!
L-lollipops and lions!
Eat lollipops!
Get custom lollipops from shoplaurakelly.com
G-GLITTER BOMBS!
Yes, my class gets glitter-bombed. Yep, it makes a HUGE mess. Yes, we call them glitter bombs. Yep, we clean up our mess and take safety precautions (goggles and shower caps!). No, there aren’t any family or custodian complaints!
F-flyswatter painting!
Students dip flyswatters in paint and SLAP their paper to paint! It’s messy so go outside! But if it rains, make a paint booth using shower curtains and paint inside!
D-Doughnuts!
C-Cookies and crazy hair!
We actually ask each child to bring in their favorite type of Oreo. We also buy different varieties to make sure we have a variety of Oreos. Everyone tastes all of the different Oreos and then we graph our favorite!
B- Bubbles!
We blow bubbles with bubble gum and bubbles!
A-Aloha!
Celebrate the last day of school with a Hawaiin/beach day/luau day! And say ALOHA to the school year!
The end-of-the-year countdown is also a great time to integrate our ABC BOOTCAMP! The ABC hats are great for the countdown! It’s always a great way to review letters and sounds!
For more end-of-the-school-year ideas and activities, check out these blog posts:
