Fun Ways to Prank Your Students
It’s the end of March, assessments are looming and summer vacation is far, far off on the horizon. It’s that time of year when you and your students could really use a little bit of fun. Luckily, we have April Fool’s Day, just a week away! Show your students your playful side with some awesome pranks that will hopefully get the whole class laughing! It’s also a good day to teach an important social skill, practice fine motor tasks and enjoy a good April Fool’s Day book.
Here are some pranking ideas you might like:
1) Pretend like you are lost when leading the students to recess (or elsewhere). Keep taking wrong turns and act confused
2) Call students by the wrong name
3) Change things around in the classroom (ex. do something funny with the calendar, stack all the chairs in a corner so they don’t have seats, cover the computers and say they are all broken)
4) Wear a funny wig and pretend it’s your new hairstyle, wear your clothes backwards or inside out, or just wear a funny piece of clothing (overalls, a weird tie, your slippers?)
CAUTION: While most kids enjoy a good joke/prank, there are those who might find them upsetting or confusing. Have a plan in place to support those students.
Practice fine motor skills with these tricks:
1) Why not take advantage of this fun day by having your students prepare a joke for their family. I love the idea of offering students a Tootsie Roll, only to have them open it up to find a baby carrot! (It might be a good idea to have the chocolates as a backup though!) After the kids enjoy the joke, let them wrap carrots in Tootsie Roll wrappers to offer to their family.
2) Everybody likes to find money…but the joke is on your students when they find they can’t pull it off the floor. If you use Tacky Glue, it will stick enough to give them a hard time to pull it off, while not ruining your floor. You can glue them all over the floor and have a prize for the student that gets the most (maybe a lollypop filled with a radish, hahaha!)
Teachable moments…all about jokes and pranks:
While most people enjoy jokes and pranks it is important to teach some students that there are parameters that need to be followed.
1) Jokes and pranks need to be funny to the person who is at the receiving end, not just to the person who does the joke or prank. They must not hurt a person’s feelings, or, obviously, hurt them physically.
2) Jokes and pranks are only funny the first time. You can prank/joke many different people with the same prank/joke, but not the same person with the same prank/joke multiple times. (Not funny anymore.)
3) When people laugh when you are pranked, they are laughing at the prank and not at the person. It is important that students understand that they are not being laughed at.
Here’s a great social story about telling jokes that was created by Breezy Special Ed:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/ATXIP1nVxBHIOvweRY5bntRTZxMCmvmzpWZs9-XTyDYRssrsQ_1b0g0/
Here are some good April Fool’s Day books:
April Fool’s Day by Melissa Schiller
Ellie May on April Fool’s Day by Hillary Homzie
April Fool’s, Mr. Todd! by Megan McDonald
April Fool’s Surprise by Abby Klein
Meg MacKintosh and the April Fool’s Day Mystery by Lucinda Landon
Finally, if you are willing to put in some time and effort (ie. the night before), I just LOVE these jello worms, which you can serve up as a special treat during the day. GROSS!! Here’s a link to step-by-step instructions:
https://onelittleproject.com/how-to-make-jello-worms/
Happy April Fool’s Day Everyone!