If you’re a teacher, you are now in the home stretch. And you are probably are feeling really worn out from all the stuff that has to be done during the last month of the year (including state testing). There are so many memes on social media about the end of the year and while they are hilarious, most of us are trying hard to stay strong, keep the kids focused, and end the year in a positive way. We need to keep teaching until the very last day, but we need some ideas for how to do that in an engaging way.
First, some thoughts from one of my favorite bloggers, Vicki Davis of Cool Cat Teacher:
You can do it. You can finish well. Love the kids. Make memories. Share moments of laughter. You’re teaching until the final bell rings and then as your words ring in their head – if you’ve said good and worthy things – you might just have the opportunity to teach them the rest of their lives.
So, how do we do that? Here are 21 ideas!
1 – Think about some fun learning units or lessons you could do at the end of the year. Anything that is more project-oriented or takes more time than what you can usually spare during the year might be a good choice. This is the part of the year where your students are “trained” to work together well and they know your expectations. So take advantage of that and bring in every project or fun idea you can. For instance, our students will be creating “chariots” for Spheros and we will be holding chariot races during the last week of school!
2 – Have your students create a memory book about the school year. There are lots of ideas for this on Teachers Pay Teachers, but you can also make up your own prompts. Think about a list of favorites — favorite science unit, favorite thing you learned in math, favorite read-aloud book, etc. Open-ended prompts work best. You can make the memory book on paper, of course, OR you can make it into a technology project using Google slides. I’m happy to share the Google slides memory book we created for our fifth graders. Email me and I’ll send you the link.
3 – Your students could also write advice for next year’s students. Think about open-ended prompts for this as well. While it’s fun to have a letter from every student that you can give to your students next year, it’s also fun to have groups of your students work on this project and create Google slides of that. You can show the presentations to your class next year.
4 – Write a six-word memoir about the year. We also do these on Google slides (clearly, we love that tool!) and our technology specialist incorporates them into a slideshow for our fifth-grade graduation event. You could create a slideshow for your own class. These are fun and meaningful.
5 – We take a grade level photo of all of our kids on the playground equipment. We then get copies made of the photo. Students decorate inexpensive picture frames like THESE. When the picture frames are dry, we insert the pictures for a fun memento of the year.
6 – One of my favorite end of year activities is something we do on the last day of school. We call it “the REAL EOG” since our state takes EOG’s, or End-of-Grade tests. This is a series of reflective questions, asking for student feedback on whatever you want to know — what they liked, what they would prefer to be different, what helped them, what did not help them. We create this in Google forms and have all of our students complete it on the last day of school. They are always a bit shocked when we say that we have one more EOG to take, but then they are pleasantly surprised! If you want a copy of the questions I use, send me an email.
7 – Do any of your students have a special talent or passion? Give them the opportunity to teach! This could be the result of a Genius Hour project, or it could be just a chance to share. This year, I have a student who has a passion for origami. We’re scheduling time for him to show some simple origami projects and my kids can’t wait. Another student developed a strong interest in the American Revolution and has created an entire Google slides presentation of his research. Ask your students if they would be interested in sharing something like this and you may be surprised at what they are capable of teaching everyone!
8 – If you have taken pictures of your students throughout the year, make a slideshow using Animoto or WeVideo!
9 – Allow some (or all) of your students to interview a classmate — about the year, about what they look forward to for summer and for the next school year, about books they recommend. They can videotape the interviews. You, of course, have final editing rights! These are also fun to show the class.
10 – At the beginning of the year, we had our students write letters to their “future self” about their goals for the year. We give these back at the end of the year and it’s fun for students to read their letters to themselves and see how they have achieved goals and often even surpassed them. Even if you don’t have letters like that from the beginning of the year, it’s fun to have them think back to the beginning of the year — what they were worried about, what they wanted to learn how to do — and spend some time writing or just talking about how far everyone has come.
11 – Have your students use Flip Grid or WeVideo to make brief videos about favorite books. Let them work together and create a script first, but encourage creativity and “selling” the book. You can show these videos to your class next year!
12 – If the weather and your school safety plan allow, spend more time outside. You could read outside, take whiteboards and do math review outside, play various review games outside. Take advantage of the spring and early summer weather.
13 – Write end of the year haiku or acrostic poems. These could be focused on a certain field trip or different learning activity from the year. They could be about other students, or just about the year in general.
14 – If being outside is not an option, consider having a classroom “camping day” or “beach day”. Allow students to bring bath towels, beach towels or blankets. You can find campfire scenes or beach scenes on youtube and keep that up on the Smartboard all day. Consider bringing a fun snack like pretzels, popcorn, or low-sugar cookies.
15 – Your students could spend time writing thank you notes to adults in the school who make a difference to them. Rather than writing lots of notes (although that is fine too), encourage them to put some thought into it and only write two or three notes. This is an especially good activity for upper elementary students who may have been at the same school for several years.
16 – Make a graffiti wall out of bulletin board paper. Let students write things they will remember, funny moments or memorable moments from the year, what they will miss, etc. You could also let them use a whiteboard. Another fun graffiti activity is to do this outside with sidewalk chalk.
17 – My students love to answer “Would You Rather” questions during our class circle. Here’s a link to a great free resource for end-of-year and summertime questions!
18 – Get your students to help with end of year cleaning and organizing tasks. You’d be amazed at what they can do to help.
19 – Consider having an “awards ceremony” on the last day of school. There are some great ideas on Teachers Pay Teachers. This is one of my favorites. You can have your students vote on these or you could just award them yourself.
20 – Make plans for summer reading with your class. You could all brainstorm a list of books to read. Encourage your students to keep in touch with each other and talk about their books. Some options for talking to each other include actually getting together to talk, writing a letter and mailing it, using email, or using Edublogs.
21 – Keeping everyone focused and motivated to follow rules and routines is always a challenge at the end of the year. One thing I do during the last two months of school: select mystery students. Every morning I randomly choose five students who are that day’s “mystery students’. I tell the class that at random times, I will be watching to see if my mystery students are doing the right thing. I keep it simple and keep track with a sticky note and tally marks. Then, at the end of the day, I announce that day’s mystery students and reward them with an Oreo cookie or a small piece of candy such as a Jolly Rancher. If someone doesn’t get the reward, I don’t announce their name publicly, but I do talk to them privately and explain why they didn’t get the reward. This system always works, but mostly because it’s a change of routine. Try it and see what you think!
Taking time to change up the routine with different activities and to actually enjoy your students helps end the year on a positive note. It will create great memories for your students, but it will also help you to remember why you do this important work. If you have other suggestions or ideas, please share!