Summer in a Jar- End of Year Activity

I used this as a one or two day project at the end of the year for students to think about visual symbols of things they were possibly going to do over the summer. As the beginning of this school year fast approaches, I can see this being used as a start of the year activity for them to show what they actually did. It would be good for getting a quick visual assessment of where their skill levels are at.

Day 1: Started with talking about why people collect things and the kinds of things people collect. Then, we had a discussion about how we also "collect" memories and how we were going to show those memories with symbols. To practice this process, I said a variety of different activities someone could do over the summer and had them tell me a symbol for it. Before they actually started drawing I gave them the worksheet below to guide them in the brainstorming process. On one side they list the activity and on the other they write/draw how they are going to show it. The minimum number of things was seven and they were encouraged to do many more!

First graders only took one class on these while Second and Third had a second work day.