End of the Year Author's Tea

So I started this blog, and I haven't been very dedicated to keeping it up and really starting it. Now that the year has wrapped up, I feel guilty that I haven't been blogging since my students have done such amazing things this year. So, over the summer, I have made a promise to start posting more about all the fabulous lessons and projects we did!

Ok now on to the Author's Tea. Students made invites for their parents which were little teapots and when you pulled up the top, it showed all the information! (Sorry I don't have the picture for you, but will post the file shortly that I made!)

The purpose of the tea is to showcase the students writing and other work from throughout the year. Parents and other staff members are invited and the students each get to read one written piece, and then show their work. Everyone is always excited about this because its a proud moment and includes lots of fun activities. We made end of the year summer writing portraits, thanks to Third Grade Love for providing the sunglass template: http://thirdgradelove.blogspot.com/2012/04/end-of-year-presentation.html

OK, this was just us having a little fun after we made the glasses. The kids thought it was hysterical at how big and cool they were!

I gave the students a few different writing prompts to choose from about summer:

1. What are your favorite things to do during the summertime?

2. Tell me about the best vacation/trip you took during the summer.

3. What is something that you would like to do this summer?

My second graders really took off with this and we tapped them to the back of their chairs. 

We also made 3D self portraits which sat on their desks:

 We put a little blurb about the author underneath their "dolls" which I had been calling them. I used examples from Judy Blume and a few others to show how every author writes a little bit about them at the end of their books.

The picture doesn't show it, but on the day of the tea, students read one book they wrote, while another operated the scanned book from my computer. I use youblisher which is an awesome site to publish work in color online and it is super easy!

Check out one of the books that is posted on youblisher:

Chickens

Overall, the Author's Tea was a great end of the year activity and the parents and staff who came were very impressed with all the kids work which was placed on their desks and they could view after everyone read. (It was also a great way for them to take it all home when it was over so the students didn't have to carry it on the bus! ha!)

I hope you all are having a good end of the year. What are some ways you wrap up everything?