Let's Just Go to Fiji

Sometimes you just need to get away from it all!  Well then, just go to Fiji and relax on the beach.  That's what our first graders will do.  This past week we started to create Fiji in the back office.  This is a place where the students (and teachers) can go when they need a break or a cooling off period.  We started by painting the water, the sandy beach, and the palm trees.  I even added a plastic coconut "drink." (You can see it on the desk.)  But we aren't finished yet.  I'm going to bring in a beach towel, Ms. Shapp said she had an old beach chair we could add, and we are hoping for a grass skirt donation to put around the desk.  The kicker would be if we could get a small blow-up boat, but we'll have to do some "fishing around" for that.  So far Fiji has been entirely too popular, but that always happens when our get-away spot is new.  Wouldn't you be there all the time?  In a few days in won't be so novel and will be used as intended.  In the past I've had Antarctica as a place to "cool off" with penguins, and a field with a stuffed lamb friend.  But one word of warning, be sure to put it in your sub plans.  A few years ago a sub in my friend's second grade class was not amused when a student disappeared and then informed her he had been to Hawaii.