April Fool's Day Classroom Fun!

I have been thinking about this April Fool's prank for about two years - no joke! I heard the idea for this somewhere and I really have no idea if it was a blog or conversation or friends of mine. If it was your original idea, let me know!

All I remember is that you have the kids go outside and try to call out for the lirpaloof bird, a special bird that can only be found on April 1st. {get it yet?} Of course, no such bird is ever found and after the kids spend a while calling for it, you let them in on the joke.  Lirpaloof is actually april fool spelled backwards! Ha, ha little kiddies - joke's on you! Then everyone laughs for just a few minutes at the appropriate volume and hysteria-level and quickly files into the perfect line and we return to the classroom for some very rigorous, hands-on, common-core, project-based learning activity where no one tries to get me back for the rest of the day. <--That last part may or may not be a complete pipe dream...

But  regardless of the outcome, I'm going to go on a lirpaloof hunt this year! If you want to join me, I've made a handout to legitimize my little prank. I made up all the stuff in the handout, like what the bird looks like and the whole carrot bit.

My plan is to read the passage together, then hand out a carrot to each of my little nuggets.

We're going to go outside, wave our carrots high and sing to the lirpaloof! Then after I snap some good pictures, I'll gather them around while I do some very drama-queen googling to see if I can find some helpful hints. And the helpful hint, of course, will be to try to say its name backwards! I'm not sure if they'll get it right away, so I'm going to bring some sidewalk chalk with me in case we have to have a volunteer write it down for us.

So if you're in school on April Fool's Day and you saw this in time, grab the freebie by clicking here. If not, you can always pin it to remember for next year!


Can't wait to blog about our bird finding adventure :)