Below I will share a bit of the "Highlight Reel" (is it really a "Highlight Reel" if it is a long post?) from my first Glow Day as well as links to all the resources we used. Sharing is caring, right? :) If you want to skip the overview and jump into the nitty gritty of things, you can click the button below to see all of my individual blog posts about the events of the day.
But first, I would like to give a HUGE shoutout to the amazing educators who inspired me and shared what they have done for their own Glow Games!
- ElementaryShenanigans (Hope King) - The #ClassroomTransformation Queen and (as far as I know!) the originator of the #GlowGames.
- AdventuresofMsSmith (Katie Smith) - The awesome teacher who shared her games she used in her own classroom Glow Games and helped bring me clarity to how I could implement this idea.
- MissStasiak (Deedee Stasiak) - The amazing inspiration behind all things that are font-tastic and being an AMAZING and CARING educator to her firsties.
- MooreinMiddle (Abigail Moore) - the inspiration behind my door signs - how cute was her idea?!
- TrueTalesofaTeacher (Kori Markussen) - Another queen of classroom transformations! She constantly inspires me, has HILARIOUS Instagram stories, and gave me some great ideas for different kinds of Glow Games.
- MrsLPaso (Deanna Liebscher) - The creator of the "Glow What You Know" sign and many other Glow Day activities.
I have worked with these teachers before and when we do things, we don't just kind of do them, we REALLY do them! For example, a couple of years ago we created a Breakout EDU game (well, actually two) that completed the book they were reading in ELA (The Only Thing to Fear by Caroline Tung Richmond) with what they were learning about in Social Studies (types of governments). We designed the games so that they complemented each other and students had two days to participate in two different games for an engaging end to a thematic unit.
Anyways, I digress...so the teachers started putting together review questions from material they had covered throughout the year and I started putting together the resources. We invited people in the building, administration, and others to drop by and see how their students were wrapping up the school year.
Above is the invite we sent out - I am including a link below to a template if you would like to use something similar in your own classroom.
I created flyers for the different days of the week and one for "tomorrow" in case anyone would like to use them in their classrooms. Simply click on the button below!
Glow Games/Glow STEAM Gallery
In the Glow Games room (at the end of the hour), we asked students to reflect on their Glow Games experience and how it fit in with the 6C Learner Profile that our district has adopted (from the authors of the book, Becoming Brilliant by Roberta Michnick Golinkoff PhD and Kathy Hirsh-Pasek PhD). In the Glow STEAM room (at the end of the hour after cleanup), we asked the students to "highlight" what they loved about the day. Although we ran out of our neon sticky notes before the end of the day in the Glow Games room, but it was interesting to see how students rated their experience as well as what they loved about the day. The bright colors made it really stand out and the kids loved seeing their part as part of the bigger picture. |
If you have access to a 3D printer and would like to 3D print your own Glow Games coins, I added the print file to Thingiverse - click the button below to head over there!