April Fool's Day

Today, of course, was April Fool's Day.  I had to sub in another third grade class.  I also wanted to be able to amuse myself, so I played a few April Fool's jokes on the students.  One of the blog's that I follow Bunting, Books, and Bright Ideas gave me a great idea to try.  She gives the students a spelling test where the words turn into a sentence when read together.  I slightly modified this to "There really is no spelling test.  I tricked you.  Happy April Fool's Day!"  She also brought in a pan with brown letter E's cut out in order to give the kids "brown-e's."  

Here is how these ideas went.  I gave the spelling test before lunch.  I built it up with the class that I wanted them to have a spelling competition with my class.  I needed to get the tests done before lunch so I could grade them.  We finished it and none of the students got what I did so I told them to reread each word while I read them aloud.  When the light bulbs finally went on, their reactions where priceless!  I couldn't stop laughing.

Later on, I gave an old follow the directions sheet.  It's one of those where you have to read all of the directions before doing anything.  When the students read the last direction, it says not to do anything on the sheet.  Right after I gave it out, the students were hard at work on the sheet.  Some came to write their name on the board while others were singing their ABC's.  This time a couple of students caught on and tried to encourage their classmates that I was tricking them!

My favorite part, was the brown-e's.  I told them in the morning that I was looking so forward to subbing for them that I made brownies for them.  Anyone with good behavior would get one at the end of the day.  This was another great reaction.  The kids were momentarily speechless.  Of course they were all irate until I passed out the brownies that I bought.  Afterwards, some boys told me I made great brownies and wanted the recipe (I love how they played along.)

Meanwhile, back in my classroom, my resident was doing the same activities.  At the end of the day, one boy said, "Miss Barker wouldn't trick us like this.  Wait, yes she would!"  Yep, totally made my day!