How to Go Out with a BANG! {EOY Activities, Part 2, with a quick FREEBIE}

It's been a crazy week, but a fun one! We are continuing with our daily End of the Year Countdown Activities!
On Tuesday, we did a science experiment. Wait! A science experiment in literacy class? Absolutely! I don't do it all the time, but if I can find a way to show students that life isn't separated into classes, that everything is connected, then I'll do it!
We used Stephanie Elkowitz's Easter Science Egg Experiments, Crafts and Coloring Fun. Again, I know it's not Easter, but I needed something simple, something my students could read and get a tiny bit of background knowledge on in one sitting, and I love the fact that Stephanie included coloring activities. It's very hands-on, and my kids loved it.
We did the Incredible Unbreakable Egg experiment. They had to try to squeeze the egg to see if it would crack. 

On Wednesday, it was SIDEWALK CHALK Day! BUT, I don't let them just go crazy with the chalk. Before we go outside, we read a few poems by Bruce Lansky - "How to Torture Your Students" (Lansky & Pomazal) and "How to Torture Your Teacher." You can find both of these poems here or by clicking on the poem titles. When we first go outside, we write a poem titled "Top 10 Ways to Annoy Your Parents."

Each day, we also have been doing some Summer Challenge Countdown lists. I decided to make this another *FUN* activity for the end of the year, and each day I have the kids enter their paper into a raffle. The next day, I read the papers, draw one out and that person gets a small prize. 
I might have had too much fun myself ... and I might have gone overboard with end of the year prizes. Here's a picture of what I got:

I found these cool plastic pockets at Office Depot. They were having a Store-Closing sale. Bittersweet shopping experience! :(  :)
I thought the pockets would be perfect for my little raffle. 

I made a cute little cover for it and I have my kids fold their papers and put them in pocket each day. Here's what it looks like with the cover on it:

I made one for all of you if you want a copy. Just click here to download from Google Docs.  It's a little more generic, but it says basically the same thing. Heck, you could use it for any raffle you are having where students have to turn in a paper! :)