National Foot Check Day...EPIC April Fools Idea!

I'm learning that after you pull an epic April Fool's Day prank, word spreads. Sometimes you have kids that have heard tales of the prank from older siblings, sometimes other well meaning teachers play your prank before you have a chance with your own kids. Such has been the case for the last two years when with my Lirpaloof Bird Hunt. It was all kinds of awesome, but it became really clear to me that it was time to leave it behind me and search for something new. So I did. And it was incredible!

I have to give credit to Tina Miller inspiring this one. She mentioned the general idea and then I took it to the extreme. 

So many little things lined up to make this work. It was kind of amazing - like the Universe was totally in on the joke. Let me walk you through the day:

As the kids walked in to the room, I noticed one of my little guys hobbling down the hall with an orthopedic boot on. It took me a few minutes to realize that this was his April Fool's prank. And it was my perfect opening. I said, "Oh man. I guess you won't be able to have your foot check today."

He looked a bit panicked, but hobbled in shifting his limp from left foot to right. He caved after about 15 minutes and confessed to me quietly that he didn't really break his foot and that he'd be able to have his feet checked after all. We agreed that he'd tell everybody right before the foot check that it was a joke. Perfect.

Then our math special teacher came to our room because the older kids were testing. And guess what she had the kids do... they measured their FEET! Thank you, Universe! I told her quietly about our upcoming foot check and she managed to work it into her lesson. Rock on!

So, when it was time to do the deal, I called them to the carpet for the day's read aloud which was What if you had Animal Feet?  Great book, by the way.

 

I explained that today was National Foot Check Day for all second graders, and just like when they had their vision and hearing checked, today a doctor would come in and make sure that their feet were growing correctly for their age and height. I reminded them that their parents returned the form giving permission at the beginning of the year. I explained that the doctor would just come in, ask them to spread their toes as wide as they could and then measure their feet.

Then I gave them the handout that explained the whole thing and we read it together. Click HERE to download a copy.

I passed out baby wipes and we cleaned our feet really well. I mean, let's have a little consideration for the podiatrist. Who wants to touch 20 pairs of stinky, dirty feet? So we took off our shoes and socks and got to work cleaning up!

After cleaning up, we put our feet up on the tables so that they'd stay clean and the doctor could just quickly make his way around the room. I told them to tell the doctor if anything had been hurting them lately and to try to remember if they'd ever injured their feet before. Their discussions were completely serious. I told them to practice spreading out their toes as wide as they could so that the doctor wouldn't have to do it (because sometimes that can hurt a little). Look at their faces as they're spreading out those toes!

We waited like this for a bit. Some of us were more relaxed than others...

I honestly had to turn my face to the board a few times because I thought I was going to lose it more than once. When I couldn't take it any more, I spilled the beans. Their reaction was priceless! They totally fell for it! I mean, who checks their feet?? lol!