I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that doesn’t love popcorn. Popcorn Day makes a great end of the year activity because it’s delicious and students don’t know that much about popcorn. It is a great nonfiction learning opportunity to review and explore before school gets out. This fun-filled theme day offers the perfect opportunity to bring students together for a day of popcorn-themed activities, games, and, of course, plenty of popcorn to munch on!
I like to run this end of the year theme day a little differently than others. We do many of the activities together rather than spending the majority of the day in centers. We begin the day by writing our schema on popcorn. We share what we already know before we begin.
Then we read The Popcorn Book by Tomie DePoala. This is a great book that provides some fun facts about popcorn. I love to do an anticipation guide with this book. Before reading, I pass out the guide. I read the statements and the students guess true or false. Then we read the story. After the story, I reread the statements and they circle true or false on what they learned. They love to be right, so I make them circle in crayon. I always stress the importance of what we learned being the key component.
After that story, we read our mini-book, “How to Grow Popcorn.” If you have the digital version of Popcorn Day, you can project the book on your SMART board for a full-color option that includes real photos. After reading the mini-book, we complete a web and do an informative writing activity about all that we have learned.
By late morning, they are ready for a little fun and a snack. My students love science experiments and I try to incorporate them into our reading units as much as possible with the limited time that we have. This sink-or-float experiment is very simple to prep and they enjoy it. All you need is a popcorn kernel and popped popcorn.
Once we finish that activity it is time for some taste testing and a popcorn snack. I ask parent volunteers to send in a variety of popcorn types for this activity. We test plain, butter, kettle, caramel, and cheddar popcorn. After we complete the activity, I let the children come and get a small bag of their favorite to enjoy as a snack.
Popcorn Activities for Centers
Before and after lunch we complete some fun popcorn centers. For math centers, I have balancing the equation puzzles, a subtraction sort, a gameboard, and a roll three dice and add bingo game.
For phonics and word work, I have a real vs. nonsense digraph scoot, alphabetizing, and a popcorn word scramble. In addition to the informative writing, there are other writing activities such as “My Opinion of Popcorn”, making a popcorn invention, a how-to writing activity, and a little popcorn poetry.
Popcorn Craft for the End of the Year
We end the day coming together with a little popcorn craft. The craft is, “This year was Poppin’ ” They fill the popcorn bucket with popcorn and some of their favorite things from the year. It is a great time to reflect and share all the fun we had.
I also have Popcorn Day Digital Activities because we didn’t want to miss out on the fun during distance learning. I like to display the digital slides on my board throughout the day. You can also purchase the digital version as a bundle with the paper-pencil activities.
Here is what a few teachers had to say about Popcorn Day:
“My students had a great day with these resources! The popcorn taste test was one of their favorite activities and I loved that we could use it to review data collection and graphing.”
“My students loved this! It made for a great theme day for the end of the year. My kids loved being able to try different popcorn and being able to compare them! I also loved all the centers and the cute decorations I could add throughout the room!”
“These units are probably the best money I have spent for my classroom. I loved how many details and activities were included. It was a great way to get through the last week of school. I will purchase all of the other theme units too! Great job!”
“Your end-of-year theme days were exactly what I was looking for! I felt like this was one of the most memorable wrap-ups that I’ve done, largely thanks to your theme-day packs. They are packed full of activities, room decor, and student materials. Thank you!”
As we come to the end of another school year, it’s important to find ways to celebrate and create memorable experiences for students. Popcorn Day is the perfect end-of-the-year activity because it combines fun, food, and community building all in one.
I’ve also created an Amazon list for Popcorn Day full of supplies, favorite books, and more to make this day extra special.
Happy Popcorn Day and here’s to a great end of the year!
Popcorn Day is just one end of the year activity that’s included in my End of the Year Theme Days Mega Bundle. Make the last few days of school memorable and full of fun learning with these end of the year theme days!
Some of you asked for more so I now have a Set 3 End of the Year Theme Days!!
These have also been added to a MEGA, MEGA End of the Year Theme Day Bundle of fun!
You can read about some of my end of the year theme days right here on my blog:
