115. How to Make Leap Day a Memorable Day in Your Elementary Classroom

Emily

Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. In today's episode, we're talking all about celebrating Leap Day in your elementary classroom.

Heidi

We start our episodes with a morning message just like we used to do it morning meeting in our classrooms. This week's morning message is what is your favorite music to play during class?

Emily

I love an instrumental movie soundtrack. I think that's probably called a score. I wouldn't probably play something they know very well like I'm probably not going to put the Harry Potter score on because then they're gonna get all excited. But the instrumental soundtracks for Pride and Prejudice and Becoming Jane are two of my favorites to play in class.

Heidi

So good. And the Little Women the 95 Little Women soundtrack is so good.

Emily

Iconic. And there's a lot of really good movie scores out there that you can play. And also I love the instrumental music from Sleeping at Last. That's kind of my go to quiet working music.

Emily

We've got some responses from our teacher approved community. Meredith said I've really enjoyed the piano music from beige mellow on YouTube.

Heidi

Well that sounds like perfect background music.

Emily

Michelle says I searched playlists on Pandora. I usually play relaxation radio. During the holidays, I played holiday instrumentals. I also have an instrumental Irish station that I play in March. I play a lot of chieftains and, yes, very fitting gotta get in the mood. Margaret said she plays classical music. And Kami says she likes calming piano covers. And Lisa likes the peaceful classroom acoustics playlist on Spotify.

Heidi

That is a nice thing about Spotify is like their playlists for anything you can imagine. Yeah, it's really easy to find preview them first, definitely.

Emily

And then Tabitha said, I do instrumental pop music if we are doing work that I need my kids to really focus on. For more relaxed, independent work time we make our own playlist, I let my kids write down their top three songs. And after I check them out, I make a Spotify playlist with their songs. They love when I let them listen to that playlist.

Emily

It's also neat to see the diversity of what my kids listen to. I have everything from classic rock to current pop, they begged me to play the class playlist every so often I let them add new songs. They just turn them in on a sticky note and I vet them first and then decide if they can be added or not. I told them right out the gate that not all songs would make it and they may not be appropriate and they were okay with that.

Heidi

That's such a fun idea.

Emily

Yeah, especially for times when you don't really need them to focus but you want some fun music on.

Heidi

And just to put in a plug we have our own Teacher Approved playlist is called the Teacher Approved Parent Conference playlist on Spotify.

Emily

That's a good one. You made a really good playlist. I had background music.

Heidi

I worked on that more intently than some people have worked on defusing bombs, let me like so it's four hours long. I wanted something that like if you needed a long stretch of background music, like me feel alone at a conferences, it would play without having to repeat. And like each song is just really mellow. I didn't want anything.

Heidi

Because you know sometimes on soundtracks like a song that's like a really intense moment. Yes, let's like change the whole vibe. And I didn't want anything like that. My standard for choosing songs was okay, can I see myself telling a parent that their kid is a joy to have in class. And also, their kid was peeing down the slide on the playground while this music is playing. And if it fit both it made the cut.

Emily

It's a very good playlist. We will link to that in the show notes.

Heidi

If you have some suggestions for great music to play in the classroom, we would love to have you join the conversation over in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.

Emily

I have always had such a fondness for Leap Day. There's something just magical to me about an extra day that we only get once every four years. Plus we are a family that enjoys I'm at half birthday fun. And my half birthday falls on Leap Day. So I think I feel a little ownership over special Just for me.

Heidi

Yeah, I think babies born on Leap Day are called leaplings. So what's a half leapling. Are you a half leapling?

Emily

I'm a half leapling. You probably already know why we have leap years but in case you never really bothered to dig into it. Here's a quick explanation. The typical year is 365 days long, but the time it takes for Earth to orbit the Sun is actually 365 days, five hours 48 minutes and 56 seconds.

Heidi

That's the Earth for you, you know, always been a little bit extra.

Emily

So if we didn't make a plan for this extra time, eventually our calendar and seasons would begin to shift and after several 100 years, we'd end up with a summer starting in December.

Heidi

And that will be very confusing for us in the northern hemisphere, and probably for the Australians who are used to a summer winter.

Emily

Yes. So to compensate, we add in an extra day to the calendar every four years. But here's an interesting note. It's actually not quite as simple as that. So plot twist. Adding in that extra day isn't quite exact, either, we end up with an extra 44 minutes every time we have a leap year. So to compensate for that we don't actually have leap year every four years. It's true. If a Leap Year falls on a year that is divisible by 100, but not divisible by 400, Leap Year is a skipped.

Heidi

There's a lot more math in this than I was expecting as I'm being on right.

Speaker 1

mathy. So that's why the year: 2000

Heidi

Wild. Is there going to be a quiz?

Emily

Maybe no, you're off the hook, no quiz. Okay, now that we're done with science corner, let's talk celebrating Leap Year in the classroom. Because this year, Leap Day falls on a Thursday.

Heidi

There are tons of ideas out there for how you can celebrate leap day in the classroom.

Emily

Most of them revolve around a very cute frog theme. But we're going to share how we like to do it, which is a space themed day. Heidi, tell us how you came up with this theme idea?

Heidi

Well two leap years ago, or eight years ago, if you're doing the math, Emily and I were talking about what we could do for Leap Day. And you know, if you look around for resources, everyone goes straight to frogs. And it makes sense frog leap. They're cute, was not to love. But making a bunch of frog resources just wasn't exciting to me. And I think that was mostly because I didn't have the skills then to draw all of the frog images we would need.

Heidi

So one Saturday morning when I could have been sleeping in, I lay awake in bed pondering all things leap because that is what my life is like. And eventually, I came to the idea of the moon landing, you know, one giant leap for mankind. And that was much more appealing to me.

Emily

I think this face theme makes this day so engaging. And it's a fun tie in to the science of leap years. So if we're going to be talking about space anyway, why not make it fit with the rest of what we're doing that day?

Heidi

And once we have the space idea, we just threw ourselves into all things space for a couple of weeks, like nonstop. In a lot of ways preparing these resources became like a wish fulfillment for me. The three leap days I had when I was teaching second grade all just totally blew past me. I didn't plan ahead. And I was always disappointed that I hadn't made a bigger deal of the day.

Heidi

So it was a lot of fun to make all of the resources I wish I had had for my second graders. When we taught preschool we did just like gloss over leap day cuz they don't even understand Monday and Tuesday, let's not complicate things.

Emily

True story, we were not doing space themed preschool centers for Leap Day, unfortunately. So sticking with the Leap theme, our Leap Day activities focus on the first moonwalk and Neil Armstrong's famous one giant leap. So we call it one giant leap in learning.

Heidi

Our days in school are so jam packed. We are just hustling from bell to bell to pack in as much as we can. Because we always feel that ticking clock. And at that frenzied pace, it's so easy to forget why we want to be teachers.

Heidi

But what if we can use this bonus day of February 29 to reconnect with the magic of learning? What if we take a step back from objectives and curriculum maps and have a day to celebrate learning and fun, meaningful ways? Our kids deserve that. And we as teachers deserve that, too.

Emily

Yeah, last week, we were talking about how it's good to have something to look forward to maybe Leap Day is the thing you're going to be looking forward to on these dark winter days.

Emily

So our goal with one giant leap in learning was to combine fun and connection and education into one special day. We have put together a set of Math and Language activities that can make that last day in February, something your kids will remember for the next four years.

Heidi

We're going to walk you through all the ins and outs of our Leap Day activities. And you can get all of these resources in our Leap Day bundle, which is only $5 Wow, that's a steal. But even if you are not interested in our materials, which would be a travesty, but you have your choices. We think we've got some fun ideas to inspire you however you decide to celebrate with your class.

Emily

Our first recommendation for an unforgettable one giant leap in learning is to start with the books. We love any excuse for new books.

Heidi

Apparently I took that advice are last week here because as I was preparing for this episode I literally an earth a stack of space themed books that I know I bought for this.

Emily

Well, they were for research so you had to have them right.

Heidi

That's what is research and not hoarding. If you are looking for Leap Day books, whether for research or for any other reason, any space book would be appropriate. But you also might want one or two kid friendly Neil Armstrong biographies.

Emily

So just preview them ahead of time to make sure they're not too text heavy. Nothing worse than trying to read a picture book with three paragraphs of text on every page. For example, if you decide to go to the moon by faith McNulty is gorgeous, but super text heavy your arm would give out if you were trying to hold that up while reading the left.

Emily

One Giant Leap by Don Brown is a very manageable biography of Neil Armstrong. What is the Moon Like by Franklin Bradley and another book called One Giant Leap this one by Robert burly are also very good, but are a little more text heavy.

Heidi

And don't worry if you missed any of those titles, they are all linked in the show notes.

Emily

After doing some reading, we like to have our students create a very simple mini biography of Neil Armstrong.

Heidi

And we do mean simple. The finished product is one page folded into fourths to make a cute little book. So start by doing your brainstorming lesson about events in Neil Armstrong's life. That's when a picture book reading ahead of time can come in handy. And then students use that information to write their own mini biography.

Emily

Now look at that we've got reading and writing covered already.

Emily

Now our next recommendation for your one giant leap and learning is to create something you can display in the hall.

Heidi

If you've been around here for very long, you know that Emily and I dread Hall displays. So we wanted to give you something that your students can use to create something meaningful instead of just a time filler craft.

Heidi

Now you don't have to display these in the hall. But if you're gonna have to put something out there anyway, you may as well make it something meaningful.

Emily

Part of Neil Armstrong's legacy is that working hard can help make even the most impossible dreams come true. We like to do a quick writing activity where students think about the mark they want to leave on the world someday. Just like Neil Armstrong left his footprint on the moon, we put the students response and a chalk footprint together and these make a really easy and impactful hall display.

Heidi

And bonus, this activity involves even more writing. Really, the more opportunity our students have to write the better writers there'll be. To help scaffold this activity students start by brainstorming ways they'll make their mark on the world. And don't worry, we included teacher instructions to walk through all of this step by step.

Emily

The next recommendation we have for your one giant leap in learning is to have a photo op.

Heidi

We have a couple of different versions of a sign including a feelin sign, where students can write how they will make their mark on the world. We also have a print and go sign that just says I made a giant leap in learning.

Emily

If you want to go all out with space themed decor, you could take a photo in front of a spacey backdrop as well.

Heidi

That sounds like a lot of fun. And that brings us to my favorite of our leap and learning activities. A time capsule.

Emily

Leap Day is the perfect time to do a time capsule because it has a built in timer and reminder to open it and four years. We keep our simple by using manila envelopes, or even those foil style envelopes that feel kind of spacey and cool.

Heidi

And I know our Dollar Tree not that long ago had those gold padded envelopes. It might be too expensive to do those for a whole class. If you could make it work somehow they would certainly be cool.

Emily

To fill our envelope time capsules, we have students fill out a questionnaire and write a letter to their future selves to go inside their time capsules.

Heidi

More writing for the win. Then we have them trace and cut out their handprint footprint. And then we use string or yarn to measure each student's height and they add that to the capsule as well. They will get such a kick out of seeing how much they've grown in four years.

Emily

If you do a photo op, it's a great idea to include that photo in the time capsule as well. You can either take it with an instant camera or get prints made and slip them into the envelopes the next day.

Heidi

Just make sure that your students leave the envelopes unsealed after they decorate the outside, so you have a chance to put the pictures in.

Emily

Yeah, don't make that mistake. If you want to break up all the academic work we include a set of 12 brain breaks that are perfect for using on Leap Day. They are all either space themed leap themed or themed around the number 29. Like, can you do 29 of these actions.

Heidi

Our brain breaks are great because they're all technology free. All you have to do is print out the cards and you are ready to go.

Emily

Since we've done so much writing, it's time for some reading. We have a reading comprehension passage that talks about the origin of Leap Day. We include in our resource three levels of difficulty so you can choose the passage that's right for your students. You can choose one passage for your whole class to work on or you can differentiate with individual students.

Heidi

And last but not least, of course, we have our beloved work packet.

Emily

Work packet. And we know a work packet does not sound exciting, but when you don't use work packets, often, we have found our students to be delighted by a themed work packet.

Heidi

Now, while we had a blast designing this packet with a space theme. We really prioritize purposeful activities here, we cover for language arts topics, and for math topics. And we offer each of them at three levels of difficulty so you can really target the exact skills your students need to practice.

Emily

Something we love about a work packet is your students can work on it in bits all day long. You can introduce the packet in the morning and explain the activities on each page. Then I'd like to give them 10 to 15 minutes to get started on the packet. For the rest of the day can be your fast finisher and times budge as needed between your other activities.

Heidi

Plus, if you want to limit your copies, print your masters with two per page. And then you can copy four activity pages to one single sheet of paper. This is a great way to save paper. And really most students can handle working on that smaller size space without any problems.

Emily

Another fun learning activity is a moon rock review. This one is so fun. You print out review questions on full size sheets of paper, then you let your students crush them up into moon rocks and toss their rock into a central place in the room. You don't want to lose any moon rocks behind the bookshelf. So tell them where you want them to send them.

Heidi

Oh yeah, that can go very badly very quickly. Then each student gets an answer sheet and just grabs one of the moon rocks, they unfold it and then write their answer to that moonrock question on their answer sheet. And they crumple it up again and throw it back in, it's time to grab another one.

Emily

This activity is a blast for two reasons. One, it's always motivating for students get to work at their own pace. And two students absolutely love crumpling up the papers and throwing them back on the ground. Suddenly, this retrieval practice activity becomes a completely novel activity.

Heidi

But this activity is a big win for meaningful reasons too. So as Emily mentioned, this kind of review is what we call retrieval practice. Students are asked to recall some knowledge that they've already learned without the help of books are notes.

Heidi

It's low stakes, so they won't be punished for getting the answers wrong. And just the practice of retrieving that information from their brains helps strengthen the pathways in their brains. And it enables them to recall that information easier later.

Emily

We're heading into testing season soon. So obviously this activity is great practice for testing season. But far beyond that our main goal is always to help students retain and use the information that they learn at school.

Heidi

We have a few other fun Leap Day activities in the pack. There are some 29 second challenges that are a lot of fun, like, how many times can you write your name in 29 seconds? And then there's some silly questions that they can answer like, I could eat 29 blank, but I could never eat 29 blank.

Emily

You know, kids imaginations will have a blast coming up with crazy ways to answer those questions. And hopefully they have a blast doing the rest of the activities as well. Getting to do things outside of the norm, even if they are learning based still feels like a treat.

Heidi

Now you can go as big or as small as you want on this theme. One year we had a teacher send us a picture of herself, and a full on astronaut costume with a full classroom space themed transformation on her own one giant leap in learning day. And it was just delightful.

Emily

Oh, it was so much fun. I still smile every time I think of it. But neither one of us was one for big classroom transformations ourselves. I mean, I love them in theory, but I just didn't have the energy for them. So don't feel pressured to make this extra elaborate. The activities themselves are already engaging enough and novel enough to make this an unforgettable day with your class without needing any decorations. But if going all out on your theme fills your bucket. We love that for you.

Heidi

And send us pictures, please.

Emily

Now if you're like Heidi and Emily, this sounds great. But it seems like a big investment for something you can only use once every four years. Well, you're not bestie because we got you covered. You can use this next year and the year after and the year after that. You're just going to use it on a random day in May instead of on February 29.

Heidi

And that is because we were thinking of you. And we designed all of these activities to work as a space themed day, any time of year and not just on Leap Day. All you have to do is drop out the Leap Day specific activities. And you were left with a fun interactive day of learning about space and reviewing important content win win.

Emily

We love to use theme days at the end of the year to keep kids engaged at a Space Day is always a winner. We also have a fun camping theme if you want to add another theme day to your schedule in May.

Heidi

We hope that gave you some fun ideas for your own leap day class celebrations, we will link to our Leap Day Resource Pack in the show notes. And if you have some fun Leap Day ideas that we haven't thought of, please come share them in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.

Emily/Heidi

Now let's talk about this week's teacher approved tip. Each week, we leave you with a small actionable tip that you can apply in your classroom today. This week's teacher approved tip is use the online digital resources from NASA for your space themed day. Can you tell us more about it, Heidi?

Heidi

NASA has some really great resources that will appeal to your students. One thing I really liked is they have a YouTube playlist about training like an astronaut. So you can have your kids doing some fun exercises if you need to incorporate some movement into your Leap Day fun.

Emily

And I also saw that NASA has a cool 4k tour of the moon video that's on YouTube, too. It's only about five minutes long. It'll be so fun to show your young astronauts in training on your Leap Day.

Heidi

Yeah, NASA is really coming through for us.

Heidi

To wrap up the show we're sharing what we're giving extra credit to this week. Emily, what gets your extra credit?

Emily

I'm giving extra credit to a new tool for Lego builders called the Tra and it's spelled capital T R A with a long a symbol above the A. If you have Lego builders, you will love this handmade wood building tray. It has a section for a 32 by 32 base plate and then two compartments for holding pieces of the set they're working on.

Emily

My kids are constantly leaving sets out half finished and then they lose a couple pieces and lose their minds. So I am loving this tray to keep it all contained while they work. And it has a built in spot for holding the little directions book while they build.

Emily

And I just want to say they have excellent customer service as well. I ran into a little issue with the first tray I ordered and they were so quick to rectify the issue and went above and beyond to make it right. You can find them at the tra company thetracompany.com and I'll link that in the show notes too.

Heidi

That's handy dandy.

Emily

What are you giving us credit to?

Heidi

Well, I am giving extra credit to the Shark hairdryer. I bought it on a Black Friday deal because my old hairdryer had just died. And my stylist had recommended this one. And it took me a little bit to talk myself into it because it costs way more than I have ever spent on a hairdryer before like magnitudes more.

Heidi

But dang did it pay off. I love it so much. I had no idea hairdryer can make such a difference to the texture of my hair. Like it cut way down on the frizziness It's so soft. I have been missing out.

Emily

Wow. That is good too know.

Heidi

Shark hairdryer for the win.

Emily

And hey, it's cheaper than a Dyson hairdryer.

Heidi

Yes, why went shark instead of Dyson.

Heidi

That's it for today's episode. Try out our ideas this year as you celebrate Leap Day in your classroom. And be sure to send us pictures if you get one giant leap day a try.

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