Glow Day 2.0!
Glow sticks? Check! Black lights? Check! Highlighters? Check!

We included links to the products we used whenever we could to make it easier for you to find them. These are NOT affiliate links. We just shop on Amazon a lot! You also don’t need anything other than the black lights, highlighters, and something to block out all of the natural light. We were able to add a lot of fun materials to this Glow Day because we had a Donor’s Choose project funded. You do not need to use any of these for a great day. In each of the center descriptions below (when possible), we gave you an alternative that can be made easily with little to no cost.
*Black Lights – We used five 24″ LED black lights for our classroom (we have a big classroom, three or four would probably work as well) that we received from a Donor’s Choose Project we were lucky enough to have funded. Click on the link below to see the one that we use in our classroom.
*Black plastic sheeting or black garbage bags to cover the classroom windows- the thicker the better. We label ours and keep them to reuse year after year. We still have our original set that we have had for more than three years and have used at least five times.
*Glow Sticks – We used about 100 for the glow stick sight word building. (We had six students in a group, but you may need more if you have more students building sight words at a time).
*Highlighters (we used different colors, but yellow is definitely the brightest under the black lights) and/or invisible ink pens (click for link Invisible Ink Pens).
*Battery Operated Tap Lights – We bought these from Walmart. They were four for about $4.00. This brings a little bit of light into the room. We put ours next to activities that needed a little more light like the writing to 100 and reading with the finger lights.
For Glow Day 2019, we added some new activities and a few more materials. We have included a description of the materials and the link (when possible) in the center explanations.
Click on the picture below to download our FREE Glow Day recording sheets!
“Glowin” in Neon! |
Room Set Up: We covered all of our windows with black plastic sheeting (black garbage bags work too), spread our black lights around the room, hung a few glow in the dark balloons on our white board, and wrote “Get Your Glow On” on our smart board using bright colors . That was it!!! The black lights made everything look amazing!
Centers – Glow Style:
We rotated through four centers the first time we did this. This last time we rotated through eight different activities. Each rotation lasted about 12 to 15 minutes including clean up and transitions. Since most of the centers are open ended, the rotation time can be adjusted as needed. We have included ten center ideas. Pick and choose whatever you need. You can easily add more. Have your students complete a recording page using a highlighter or add glow in the dark manipulatives or materials to practice a math concept or create an engineering project.
Building sight words out of glow sticks. |
The invisible ink pens have UV lights on the end! |
Highlighters work great too! Read, write, read! |
Glow Writing: The students were SO engaged as they wrote letters, words, and sentences. They had the choice of using highlighters or invisible ink pens. We also had tap lights out on the table in case they wanted to have more light. You can find tap lights at the Dollar Store or Walmart.
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Finger Lights
Reading with finger lights! |
Links to…
Glow writing to 100 using invisible ink pens. Highlighters work too! |
Glow Top It! Comparing Numbers |
Glow Sensory: We had three different sensory stations set up: glow in the dark sand, glow in the dark slime, and glow in the dark play dough. The kids LOVED the sand; however, after cleaning it up, we will probably not do it again!!! It ended up everywhere! They explored the sand and the slime, and they stamped sight words into the play dough. We wrote sight words on strips of paper using highlighters and differentiated the activity by writing different lists of sight words using different colored highlighters. The students then used stamps (we used regular alphabet stamps, but dough stampers would have been great too) to stamp the sight words into the play dough. The kids could have also written in the play dough with a pencil.
Links to Materials Listed in Center Description
Stamping sight words into glow Play Dough. |
We probably won’t do glow in the dark sand again. #epicfail #itwaseverywhere |
Glow in the dark sand – They had the best time! |
We really meant it when we said that it was everywhere! They loved it! |
Glow Cup Tower/Wall Engineering #lovethefloatinghat |
Light Up Bowling Set
Glow Bowling Subtraction |
We also did a fun whole-class STEM activity. After reading the book Iggy Peck, Architect, students used neon straws and marshmallows to try to construct the tallest tower. Next time, we will use larger marshmallows or Playdoh and maybe even glow sticks for building. The straws worked pretty well but didn’t glow as much as we thought they would. Glow sticks would be even better!
I love your shirts do you have a picture if them without the blacklist? Did you make them or buy them? I am looking to make something for our 100 Days Brighter Glow Day!
Hello,
I’m sorry, but we do not have a picture of them without the black lights on. We did make them using our Cricut. They were so much fun to wear!!