Classroom Sleepover!

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Last night we had our classroom sleepover and truthfully I am just a little sleepy today!  I’ve had a few requests to explain how I put this together so I thought I’d blog about it today.  It really is not as scary as it sounds!

First, I got the ok from my principal of course.  She thinks I’m nuts but she let me do it!  I planned it for the Friday before school gets out and this doubles as my “class party”.  This way I can clean my room next week instead of messing it up!  We doubled up with one of my besties and shared our sleepover with third grade.  This meant double the kids in my room but overall it went off without a hitch.

The most important factor in having a classroom sleepover is what they bring with them, and what you feed them (no junk!).  I tell my kiddos to bring a sleeping bag, a pillow, and a toothbrush AND THAT’S ALL!  Imagine the bags of “stuff” they might try to bring with them.  It could all get very messy!  They wear comfy clothes they can play in and sleep in so there is no changing of clothes.

Here is our mega pile of stuff outside the classroom.  We leave it out in the hall until it is time to actually get in the sleeping bags!

Activities!  We planned centers so the kids could rotate through different activities but they are no fuss no muss centers!  I grab all the things kids love to do but we never have time to get to during the school year.  This year our centers included computers, board games, a fun science experiment, Dance Dance Revolution on the Playstation, and building blocks.  We also included a nail painting station for the girls but that was quickly shut down after it got WAY too messy!  I do not suggest doing that one unless you have a parent staying to paint nails for kids!  Our science experiment was courtesy of my bestie, she did the "Ivory Soap Explosion" with the kids in the kitchen (yes, my room has a kitchen....go ahead and just hate me now).  Here is a link to that cool activity.  It was a little messy, but boy oh boy did the kids love it and it left my room smelling Ivory fresh!

Come Together Kids has a great post about this experiment!

 

After about 2 hours of centers (that sounds like a long time, but when it’s all fun it goes so fast!) we went out to the bathrooms for a break.  We actually had a birthday boy in the bunch so we had cupcakes for him and then settled down with our sleeping bags. We ate popcorn and drank Capri Suns during the movie.

 I push my tables to the back of the room and stack them so we have more room.   We started the movie at about 10:00 p.m. so the kids were pretty much worn out at that point. 

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We watched Tales of Despereaux because we just read it aloud as a class.  They were excited!

  

After the movie was over it was LIGHTS OUT!  A bunch of students fell asleep during the movie but there are always "those" sweeties that just love to have fun!  Our last giggles were heard at about midnight and we had a few whispers still going on at 1:00 a.m. but out of 38 kids in the room MOST of them were asleep!

I have parents pick up at 8:00 am and under normal circumstances the kids would sleep right up to that point.  We had the added bonus today of our intercom crackling at 6:00 a.m. this morning and it wouldn’t stop!  By 6:30 all the kids were up and wondering what that noise was so we cleaned up (they did a great job too!) and had a donut and juice and headed out the playground.  We had about 45 minutes of recess before the parents started showing up.  All in all it was a super success and I would do it again in a heartbeat!

So there you have it.  I can't tell you how sweet it is to hear 38 little snoring babes sleeping away at school.  It was also the very first sleepover for a lot of my firsties!  Have you ever done a classroom sleepover?  If so do you have any tips for us? 

I hope you have a FANTASTIC last little bit of school! (However long that may be....for me it's 4 and half days!)  Happy Teaching! ~Heather