WHAT THE FUN?! in July and All Year ‘Round

Sing it with me!
“What the world
Needs now
Is Fun!
WHAT THE FUN?!”

I picked something fun for July’s professional development book: WHAT THE FUN?! 427 Simple Ways to Have Fantastic Family Fun by Donna Bozzo. As you can see from my pink sticky tabs, I found lots of quick, easy, inexpensive ideas in WHAT THE FUN?! that work well in classrooms as well as at home, like:

p. 35 “Comedy Club…Let the kids spend the day finding jokes and writing their own material.” Riddle and joke books can be less intimidating for some kids and make for meaningful reading and writing. Anthony, a wiggly first grader, found motivation for self-control when he knew that he could have time to shine as class clown at the end of the day. If everyone quickly got ready for home, the last few minutes before dismissal could be “open mic” time. I could remind Anthony when he got squirrelly during lessons to save it for when we could all enjoy it, a positive consequence instead of a negative one.
p. 65 “Practice Speaking in a Kind Way and Teach Your Children to Do the Same:…say six nice things to six someones and make their day.” This can be a transition activity, a “brain break”, something to do while waiting in line, etc. Choose kids to compliment and to give compliments randomly (my students all had a class number so I’d just pull from a jar of numbered wooden sticks) or select someone and catch them being good. Some days it’s tough to remember to model kindness, so consider making this a daily or weekly routine.
p. 149 “Groundhog Day Fun!” Donna Bozzo has creative ways to share picture books with kids, and she came up with fantastic ideas to use with my book, GROUNDHOG’S DILEMMA! Donna, you made me swoon! I’m going to try both your suggestions for making a groundhog for retelling my story, and your cake with fun-sized candy bars decorated to look like groundhogs peeking up is yummy year ’round.