Activities
With spooky season right around the corner, now is the perfect time to try out the latest classroom theme day trend – glow day! Want to know how to embrace this trend and transform your classroom into a black-lit wonderland? Follow these steps, and let’s get glowing.
Just so you know, we may get a small share of the sales made through affiliate links on this page.
Step 1: Pick the perfect day.
There’s no doubt that pulling off a classroom glow day takes some prep work. So look ahead on your calendar and pick a day when no big deadlines are looming before or after your planned glow day. You might consider picking a Monday so that you can put the finishing touches on your décor over the weekend.
Step 2: Build excitement by sending information home with students.
Students and their families can get in on the fun by planning perfect glow day outfits. Your classroom will be lit primarily by black lights, so students should choose bright or white clothing to make the most of the glow effect. White shoelaces, white shoes, and white t-shirts make great outfit choices.
Step 3: Block out all classroom light sources.
The day before, you’ll want to cover up all sources of outside light such as windows or doors. The easiest way to do this is to use black butcher paper or tablecloths to cover these light sources. If you plan to throw a glow day every year, you might invest in fabric-backed black tablecloths such as these, which you could use year after year.
Step 4: Set up blacklights all around your room.
The glow day ambiance comes from the fun blue glow of blacklights. To get the best possible effect, place four to six blacklights around your room. The glow will distribute best from up high, so shelves and chalkboard railings are good places to set your blacklights. Don’t forget extension cords if your electrical outlets are few and far between.
Step 5: Decorate!
To totally transform your classroom, once the blacklights are up and the windows are covered, you get to decorate your heart out.
You can start by designing a glow day welcome display for your smart board. Then, make posters with blacklight paint or highlighters, both of which will radiate neon under your blacklight bars. Hang blacklight streamers around the room. Helium-filled blacklight balloons are a perfect finishing touch.
Step 6: Plan learning stations and games.
A blacklight day isn’t just an excuse to play games all day. Your students can still get some serious academic work done in a fun, novel setting
White paper glows under a blacklight, and so do highlighters, so you can have your students do any of the day’s paperwork with highlighters instead of pencils or pens (just be sure to grade them by blacklight, too – your eyes will thank you!)
Here are some ideas for both serious work and serious fun.
1. Read by flashlight.
Set your students up to do some silent reading by giving everyone a flashlight. Let your students make themselves comfortable around your room in various nooks and crannies. Flashlight reading is fun and makes children feel like they are inside a blanket fort.
2. Practice highlighting skills.
Learning to read a text and pull out the most important details is a cross-curricular skill that all students, regardless of grade level, could benefit from practicing. Highlighting these important points becomes a fun activity underneath the glow of a blacklight.
3. Read glow-themed books to your students.
There are so many great choices for glow day read-alouds. These books help set the mood, extend the party theme, and are educational, too. Check out:
- Firenze’s Light by Jessica Collaco and illustrated by Angela Li
- The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors by Chris Barton and illustrated by Tony Persiani
- Superluminous by Ian de Haes
- Flashlight by Lizi Boyd
- Flashlight Night by Matt Forrest Esenwine and illustrated by Fred Koehler
4. Learn about space.
A glow day is the perfect day for a space-themed science lesson. Anything white or glowing is perfect for this activity. Students could make planets out of Styrofoam balls and blacklight tape, or they could work together on a class mural depicting different constellations.
5. Do some glow-in-the-dark coloring.
There are several ways to approach glow-in-the-dark coloring. You could print out coloring pages on bright white paper, supply your students with highlighters, and let them make masterpieces. Or, for a bit of freeform fun, stretch white butcher paper on the floor or across desks and let students color outside the lines.
6. Write in neon.
Early elementary students can practice their ABCs with highlighters, whereas older children can write sentences, paragraphs, or even spooky stories. Who wouldn’t like to tell ghost stories by blacklight?
7. Play glowing tic-tac-toe.
Use blacklight tape to draw a tic-tac-toe grid either on desks or on the floor. Students can use neon sticky notes with Xs and Os to play the game. Alternatively, glow sticks can be taped together to form Xs, while the necklaces and bracelets make perfect Os.
8. Play a ball toss and/or ring toss game.
A pack of neon plastic cups and some ping pong balls are all you need to play ball toss during your glow day. Or, if you’d prefer, students can toss glow stick necklaces at cones or water bottles to practice their carnival game skills.
9. Compete in blacklight bowling.
White bowling pins glow under a blacklight, but if you don’t have your own set of pins handy, use water bottles and a softball instead. Insert a glow stick into a water bottle, and voila! You have glowing pins, perfect for a classroom game of blacklight bowling.
There are endless ways to make a blacklight theme work for your students. Whatever you decide to do, your students are sure to remember glow day as the best day ever.
Supplies for absolutely perfect classroom glow days
Ready to get started? Here’s a supply list that will get you on your way to an amazing day.
- Blacklights
- Blacklight paint
- Blacklight tape
- Glow sticks
- Highlighters
- Neon balloons
- Neon plastic cups
- Party lighting
- Glow-in-the-dark bubbles
- Blacklight streamers
