Glow Day!

Glow Day has quickly turned into our favorite day of the year! It's an opportunity to amp up the fun and engagement for ANY content area. We were inspired by Hope King and heavily relied on experience from @AdventuresofMsSmith. After researching how they pulled off a glow day, we took some of their ideas and made it our own. We hope YOU do the same as well!

So we started with a Teachers Pay Teachers pack of Glow Day math centers from @AdventuresofMsSmith. Her Instagram highlights helped this process tremendously. We also gathered inspiration from Hope King's blog post on her Glow Day. We also have Instagram Highlights if you'd like to see videos detailing how we pulled off each station and gathered materials to make this possible! These Glow Day game station ideas can really be used in a lot of ways and for any subject matter. We started with her pack and then added a couple stations of our own to make the day cross curricular. Once these supplies are purchased and the task cards are laminated, the prep work is so much easier the next year! We have a whole shopping list linked at the bottom of this post to make it easier for you to gather materials (or add them to a wish list)!

The idea behind the games is that students have to solve problems or answer questions. For every question they get right, they get to play the game at the station and earn points for their team. The points are tallied and a winner is established at the end of the day! The whole day was motivating to them, but with points involved it really pushed them to work together to solve as many problems correctly as they could.

Decoration Day

With the help of our husbands, this room transformation took about two hours after school to pull off. We used black tablecloth rolls and cut up black trash bags to black out the windows and cover up some decor on the walls. This makes a big impact and can be saved to use again and again for multiple room transformations! The black lights were hung around the room using zip ties. We made Glow Day posters using neon cardstock and blacklight reactive paint, and also cut out shapes using the cardstock to tape all over the black backgrounds. We hung blacklight reactive balloons from the ceiling and it was a cool touch! We also turned on our disco ball light that we use for other celebrations throughout the year. When the students walked in, we gave them each a glowstick bracelet and connectors to make glasses for an extra fun touch!

The blacklights and other various needed items can be pricey. Consider borrowing these items! We had a few black lights already that we used for Holloween decorations- multi-purpose! Glow Day was the first real room transformation we tried and when I reached out to my community to borrow items, they were so great about not only letting me borrow what I needed, but offering to purchase items as well. I made an Amazon Wish List and family, friends, and even parents from my class purchased items to help me pull this off! I now save everything in storage and plan to reuse it every year. I have a shopping list linked at the bottom if you are interested in trying this out! 

Station #1: Jenga

This station starts out with a basic Jenga building game. We put blacklight reactive tape along the sides of the blocks. Player 1 takes a Jenga block from the stack. Whichever color tape was on the block corresponds to a same color stack of task cards. Player 1 reads the problem to the group and they all solve it individually in their workbooks. They go over it, correct anything that was missed, and the team gets a point for solving the problem. Then, the next player gets to go and the process keeps repeating. If they game falls, they pick it up and keep playing!

Station 2: Glow Bowling

The bowling pins are just empty water bottles with glow sticks in them! They were a bit too easy to knock over, so I also added small rocks from the playground at the bottom for some weight and resistance. I also put blacklight reactive tape marks on the ground where the pins go so the students could quickly set the pins back up after each bowl. For this station, the students rolled big neon dice (but any dice would work) and created a number out of the digits they rolled. Then, they solved problems in their workbooks with these numbers- ordering them from least to greatest, comparing them, writing them as decimals and fractions etc. When the group solves a problem and everyone has gone over it, one player gets to roll the ball. However many pins are knocked down is their points. They keep track of all the pins knocked down during that center and when it's time to switch, they total it for their points for this round.

Station 3: Ring Toss

We used 3 different shaped plastic bottles for this station- two liters will work, or empty lemonade jugs etc. We put blacklight reactive tape on them and filled them with water and a busted highlighter that matched the tape! The rings were just glow sticks connected together like a necklace. There were 3 different sets of task cards here that matched the colors on each bottle. Students picked a task card, solved the problem, and went over it together. When everyone had it right and corrected, they each got two chances to throw a ring at the same colored bottle. However many rings were made, was their points for this round! The process is repeated after everyone throws.

Station 4: GeoBuild

This station incorporates technology, but it can be avoided if you don't have a device available. The students have to build out geometry tasks using glow sticks! They draw a picture of their build in their workbook and then take a picture of it and add it to a collage using the Piccollage app on an iPad. However many they get through is their points for this round.

Station 5: Kahoot Pong Toss

We added this station to get some Science/Social Studies review in. We created a whole year review Kahoot for science and social studies (everything we had learned so far). Every time every team member got a question right, they each got to try to throw a ping pong ball into a cup for pong toss! The cups were grouped in certain point scores, so that's how they earned their points for this round. We ordered neon orange ping pong balls and neon cups to make it more glowy :) 

Station 6: Evidence Detective

This was a station we added in order to incorporate some ELA and Reading practice. We printed out 3 different science based articles and they could choose one based on interest. They answered multiple choice questions based on the article and had to highlight the evidence in the article that proved their answer was correct. Then, they used gel pens to answer some short answer questions and an essay if time allowed. We came around and quickly scored these with an answer key and however many they got right was their points for that round. 

Management

When students walked in, we soaked in their amazement and surprise! We handed them each a glow bracelet, glow glasses, a workbook and a neon pencil. We love to keep Glow Day a complete surprise, and only tell them the day before that they may want to wear something white or neon the next day and be sure not to miss school (to build anticipation)! Since we had six stations, we divided our day up into 6 time intervals- leaving about 30 minutes in the morning to go over expectations and directions for each station and come up with team names! Each station had directions to go along with it and we discussed the importance of reading them thoroughly before they began. We tell them that we've invited other teachers to stop by throughout the day and we want them to be able to thoroughly talk about what they're doing and learning in each station. They have workbooks to carry throughout the day where they can show their work and turn it in at the end of the day. We kept close track of the time and gave them a 5 minute warning before each switch so they could start wrapping up and adding their points if needed. In between each rotation, we asked for their scores and kept track of them on an anchor chart. At the end of the day, we do a big reveal of the winner and give them some glowy swag. We talk about what went well, what we learned and what challenges we faced and how we overcame them! Don't forget to take lots of pictures- you will want to remember this forever!

**You can check out videos with more details highlighted on our Instagram @DoubleDutyTeachers **

Your Complete Glow Day Amazon Wish List (Affiliate Links Provided): 

• Glowsticks
• Blacklights and/or Blacklights 
• Blacklight Reactive Paint
• Blacklight Reactive Tape
• Blacklight Reactive Balloons
• Glow Confetti
• Black Tablecloth Rolls
• Black Trash Bags
• Glowstick Glasses Connectors
• Jenga
• Neon Dice
• Neon Bowling Ball
• Neon Cardstock
• Neon Paper
• Laminating Pouches
• Highlighters
• Neon Pencils
• Gel Pens
• Neon Cups
• Neon Ping Pong Balls
• Light Up Shoes (because HOW COOL we couldn't resist)

Glow Day 2021 Easy Addition

Due to COVID restrictions, we took it a little easier this year. We simply decorated the room with our supplies, provided each student with a glow stick bracelet and pencil, and reviewed some 4th grade math material before state testing. I made a Google Slide with review material using a free neon theme- feel free to click the link and make a copy for yourself! We practiced making angles and lines using glow sticks, ad then practiced measuring and drawing angles using protractors. I used this resource from Teachers Pay Teachers and just copied it on neon paper- this made a bid impression on them! 

You don't have to go all out and glow day does NOT have to be overwhelming. Any little change in the classroom can be engaging and refreshing for the students AND you! Give it a try, and let us know how we can help!