As the end of the year approaches, students can get antsy, and you can feel stressed! Instead, use some of these fun end of the year activities to have a little fun and enjoy your students!
1. Color
Even big kids enjoy coloring, and it is the perfect calming activity for this crazy time of year. These Partner Color by Code activities are a great way to review math skills, collaborate with friends, and chill out. Or try these cute Color with Kindness pages, an excellent way to remind students to be kind during the chaos.
2. Let Your Students Teach
Time to turn the tables on your students! Split them into groups of two-four students. Give them a topic to review, and let them go.
3. Get Outside
Spring fever is here, so you may as well let it work for you! Grab chalk and let your students write out math facts or review spelling words. Host a Field Day or a Track Meet. Take the chairs outside and do some ear to ear reading.
4. Independent Learning Activities
You may be thinking, “Ugh!” but seriously, these can be helpful to students. Independent Learning Activities allow students to manage time, review skills, and continue learning up to the last day. Grab some ELA or Math End of the Year Review pages, copy and staple.
Do your students love the computer? Assign the End of the Year Activities digitally.
Don’t forget to provide incentives for completion, neatness, and correctness!
5. End of the Year Memory Books
After teaching Kindergarten for a few years, I got out of the complicated and exhaustive memory book business! However, my fifth graders loved the chance to reflect and remember all the good things that happened in fifth grade with these Memory Book One Pagers. Easy to prep, creative and unique, they give my students the chance to create a page or a book with memories that are important to them.
6. End of the Year Letters to Next Year’s Students
I used to have my fifth graders write a letter to my incoming students. For some reason, they flopped. My incoming students were not impressed, and the outgoing students never knew what to write, so I changed it up. I created a Digital End of the Year Letter presentation, and it became one of my favorite end of the year activities!
Each of my outgoing Fifth Grade students received a slide. They shared advice, motivation, and what they loved about fifth grade. Once complete, I had a fun presentation to show my new class.
If Digital is not your thing, create a printable version! Make it a book and keep it in your class library.
7. Book Clubs
The end of the year is the perfect time to let students read a novel of their choice. The problem is keeping them accountable! I use these Reading Strategies printable pages to keep my students accountable. Easy to prep. Just copy and let students select a page a day.
8. Bring Social Studies Alive
Depending upon what grade you teach, the end of the year is a great time to reenact social studies. Teach fifth grade? Host a State Fair. Serve a popular food, dress as someone in an important industry, and create a poster about the state.
Learning about the Gold Rush? Host a Gold Rush Boom Town. Students earn “gold” the last two weeks that they can spend in town during that day.
9. Complete a Service Project
Use these last few weeks to experience some real world end of the year activities. Clean the campus (with all the proper safety gear!), read to the younger students, teach a lesson to a younger grade, help a teacher take down their room, collect food for a food bank, design and make cards for veterans, design and make door posters for seniors in a senior care facility, write and perform a play about anti-bullying and perform it in front of the school. The list is endless!
10. Complete a Passion Project
The end of the year is the perfect time to indulge in Passion Projects. Passion Projects are projects that allow students to research and learn about things meaningful to them. Letting students find and follow their passions is a great way to engage students, reduce behavior issues, and unlock learning for even the most unmotivated students. Give your students time to research and share their passion. Students could create a video, a Google Slide presentation, a One Pager, or an infographic to showcase what they have learned.
11. End of the Year Timeline
Put up butcher paper in your room (perfect for just after you have taken down all the decorations) and mark the months of the school year. Have students reflect and record things that happened during the year. This end of the year activity is helpful as it provides feedback to help you plan for next year.
12. Host a Scavenger Hunt
Get your students up, moving, and reviewing with a fun scavenger hunt. Make a list of items you want your students to find. It could be items you have hidden around the school, items in your classroom, or information students can find by looking either online or around the campus. For example, have students look up a word in a dictionary (the old-fashioned way), find a book in the school library, and find a fact in a textbook you used.
13. Earn a Special End of the Year Day
To keep students somewhat calm and working, have a list of fun things they can earn as a class.
For example:
⭐Sit Where You Wish Day (or week)
⭐Bring a Stuffed Animal to School Day
‘⭐Read-a-thon – Day – Complete with blankets and pillows
⭐Digital Day – Play computer games for part of the day
⭐Music Day – Bring your device and listen to music
⭐Dance Off – Have a Dance Party at the end of a day
⭐Beach Day – Bring in your towels, cooler, and play beach games outside
⭐Have a Picnic – Bring your lunch to the field and eat together picnic style
⭐Park Day – If you have a park that is within walking distance, see if you can go to the park to play
Whatever you do these last days of the school year, make sure to take care of yourself. Everything will get done, I promise! Keep in mind that you have done an amazing job this year, and in a few days, you will have a few weeks all to yourself!
