If you think you’re excited about the end of the school year, imagine how the students are feeling right about now! The end of the year is notorious for being a crazy time! In this post, we are going to share 12 things that you can do to make your last few weeks less chaotic and a little more magical!
Don’t ease up on your classroom rules and procedures!
The end of the year is the time to be even more structured! You might even want to add a new classroom management procedure that is fresh for the students.
If you’re looking for a little extra motivating power, we have a fun idea!
You’ll just choose one student to be the “Secret Scholar” for this classroom management strategy. But, you won’t tell anyone who it is! If the secret scholar has met the class expectations at the end of the day, they’ll find out it was them!
If you want to give this a try, we have some materials you can download.
No matter how good your class or management is, it’s the end of the year, and there will be some challenges.
Make sure you anticipate some of these challenges and have specific consequences in mind. When they do happen, you’re ready to turn things back around.
There may only be a few weeks left, but consistency is still key.
Students are most engaged when their work is meaningful and when they have an opportunity to create something for an authentic audience.
A legacy project is something that I always assign toward the end of the school year. I would alternate between two of my favorite legacy projects.
Some years I would allow the students to create a math board game that reinforced a specific math skill. Each student chose a skill and designed a game that could be used to practice that skill. They knew that they’d be leaving the game for next year’s students to play. They loved creating something that they knew would stay in my classroom for years to come. Plus, they played last year’s games throughout the school year, so they took pride in leaving something for the future.
The other legacy project I like to do is a science one where students get to plan an experiment. This activity is similar to the math one, except that instead of creating board games, they are designing a scientific experiment that works through the scientific method. If you want to learn more about this legacy project, click here.
If your school lets you, have a movie day!
Choose a movie that is a remake of a book your students have read. Let them bring pillows or stuffed animals, a soft drink, and popcorn, making a fun afternoon.
To ensure that you’re not wasting any learning time, allow students to compare the book and movie versions. You can pick up our Movie vs. Book task cards to help make sure the experience is educational.
Having extra recess at the end of the school year is a great way to help students burn off some of that excess energy.
You can integrate science lessons or poetry lessons into the time spent outside or even just have read-aloud time.
You could also have a nature scavenger hunt.
If your school doesn’t have an organized field day, let your students get in groups and plan little outside activities. You can host your own little field day, and the students will love it even more because they designed it themselves.
My mom kept a lot of stuff that I made at school throughout the years, and I love looking back on it.
When the students create a memory book, it will help them remember all the fantastic times and the special friends they had during the school year.
If you want to think really big, you can have your students write a letter to themselves that they won’t see until a year or more later. They can even predict what they think their life will be like in the future. Just save their letters, and in a few years, you can pass the letters along to the middle school or the high school for them to give back out to the students. My daughter’s 8th-grade class did this, and it was so fun to read her middle school thoughts after graduating high school.
Everyone is burned out by the end of the year: teachers and students both.
If you are getting sucked into negative drama, find a way out! The only way to feel better about a situation is to focus on what you have to be grateful for. While the easiest thing to do is to join in someone else’s pity party, the thing that will make you feel the best is to do the opposite of that.
You might find that your students are in the same boat.
I always have a lot of friend drama at the end of the school year. Create opportunities for students to focus on the positives that are going on around them.
You may be able to collaborate with the school’s art teacher to gather some ideas, but even having something simple like a giant collaborative coloring page can help students unwind and enjoy their day a little more.
For a dramatic flair, have your class participate in our readers’ theater, “Who Freed the Fish?” There are enough characters for all of the classmates, and your students will get to spend their time solving a field day mystery.
You can even set aside time for a dance party. One of my former schools instituted a Friday morning dance party.
We let the students come down a few minutes early and blasted fun music in the classrooms. The kids loved it! If your students need a little boost to get into the dance party, use Just Dance videos from YouTube for more structure!
I like to break my students into groups and put them in charge of organizing a specific classroom area. (My own little End of Year Committees)
For example, I might ask one group to organize and clean the classroom library and another group to help me organize the materials in my small group area. Other students collected and organized all of the textbooks, while another took all the decorations off the walls.
It’s fun to see how the students think about their task! You’ll see that they come up with some really cool ideas!
You could have students sign up for the committee they’d like to serve on to make it extra successful.
Financial literacy is such an essential skill for students!
The end of the year is the perfect opportunity for students to set aside some time to plan and develop their own small businesses. Afterward, they all come together and sell their products to one another for classroom currency.
During the last week of school, we would hold a classroom auction. Students could bid on auction items using the classroom currency they made on “Market Day.” Click here to learn more about Market Days!
Give each student an award that is specific to them!
Avoid embarrassing prizes like “Messiest Desk.” But do look for specific strengths and honor the students for their outstanding traits.
If possible, have a ceremony during the end-of-year party or invite parents to join in the fun. We even have a resource where students can color their own awards!
During the school year, students often end up working with only students with a similar reading level.
Why not give students the chance to read with a best friend or with someone they rarely got to work with throughout the school year.
If you’re worried about pairings, you can use audio versions of books for student pairs you feel will need extra support. If you’re concerned about behavior being a problem, communicate to the students that this is their opportunity to show that they are ready for the next school year.
If you want to go even further, you can assign the students a fun book project. Not only will the friends enjoy reading together but creating a fun project together will make the experience even more memorable.
For book project ideas, check out this fantastic resource students love!
The last grading period always sneaked up on me!
I would find myself in a situation where grades were due in a week. I had done so many projects and experiences in place of worksheets and quizzes that I didn’t have enough grades!
Try and get in your grades during the first few weeks of the grading period to avoid scrambling at the end of it! You can take grades on journals, notebooks, portfolios, or reflections if you need more grades.
I recently asked the amazing teachers on my Facebook page how they liked to celebrate the end of the school year. Here are their terrific ideas:
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“I love having students vote on class awards. I always make enough categories so that every student gets an award. Some categories include: Math Whiz, Class Clown, Most Helpful, etc.” – Jenifer Phillips
“We take our 1st graders to visit 2nd grade. They do a walk-through tour, and then we buddy them up with a 2nd grader to conduct ‘interviews.’ It is SUPER adorable! They have a blast coming up with the questions! Also, this year in math, we’re doing Math Olympics where homerooms compete. We’re playing fast facts baseball and other fun games! Should be a blast!!!” – A Year of Many “Firsts”
“Read-in!!! Kids bring a pillow, something to lay on, lots of books, and something to drink and eat of their choice. We do a half hour of reading with a 10-minute break after the reading. Repeat all day! The kids love it, and it is time for me to do paperwork, etc.!” – Julie Slocum Santello
“I have a great book of ‘fractured’ faerie tales. We split the class into groups, and they have a week to prepare for a presentation. They love it. It’s like Reader’s Theatre so no lines to learn.” – Betsy Lutz Brown
“My kids were very rowdy one day, so I decided to have them write a letter to the Kindergarten bunch about what to expect in 1st grade. They loved it! Many of them made a graphic organizer before they wrote with two columns: one with a smiley face and one with a frowny face. There were some cute sayings about what ‘would make Mrs. Totty mad.’ lol.” – Sherrie Hood Totty
“A class scrapbook. I just saw that Laura Candler has directions for one on her page, so I’ll integrate some of her ideas with mine. I also let my students paint wooden picture frames and put a class picture inside. Oh, and I do a book swap for summer reading.” – Chen Po
“I love passing out portfolios and having my kids examine how much they have grown (academically and physically!) since the beginning of the year!” – Mrs. Lirette’s Learning Detectives
“This is my first year teaching. I had my 6th grade crew write letters to themselves during the first week of school. They reflected on these when writing to the upcoming 6th graders. It was great to watch them realize how far they’d come.” – Carrie Elizabeth
“After starting our year with First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg (first story in our reading books), we finished with the read aloud, Last Day Blues (same characters).” – Monica Horn
“Checkers tournament, movie day (different rooms show different movies, kids pick which they want to see like at theaters), game day (bring your favorite game).” – Gina Smith Robinson
“I have done t-shirts. The children bring in white shirts, and we get fabric markers. The children design the shirts highlighting the year. Then, they have their classmates sign the shirt.” – Renee Manzi
“I had all of my kids sit in a circle with a bouncy ball. They had to shut their eyes and roll the ball. Then, they had to say something nice about the person who caught the ball. It was so sweet.” – Holly Jeanette Hanson
“My kids made kites. We used this site, where they have a video tutorial. Super easy, and then we flew them outside as a reward after testing week!” – Brittany Ledbetter Neal
“I have had kids do a class scrapbook. Each student gets an 8.5″ x 11″ piece of scrapbook paper, and they reflect on their school year. They are allowed to use any arts and crafts materials that are available in the room or that they bring from home. I encourage them to include a picture and quotes from the year. It is really interesting to see what memories they will leave the 6th grade with.” – Rebecca Helms McKnight
“I have the students do ABC books on how to survive in my class. Then, the next year’s class gets to read them on the first day of class. They can be really creative on what gets them in trouble and what they can do to stay on my good side.” – Heather Wilzbacher Barrow
“I have my 6th graders write letters to next year’s new 6th graders. It’s so hard to change to middle school. My new students love hearing their advice about changing classes, connection classes, lockers, staying organized, and doing homework. This year I even made a survey for students to reflect on my abilities as a teacher. It was very eye-opening as they were sweet to think that I was a great teacher. I did learn that I don’t let students know their progress as much as they’d like. It’s my goal for next year.” – Emily Watts McGrady
“I have each child write a positive comment about their classmates. Then, I type up the comments and give them to the kids on the last day of school. We brainstorm a few lists, as well…memories, good things about our school, ideas on things to do during the summer.” – Elementary Matters
“We have a fun day with 10 stations. The favorite this year was a Funnoodle javelin throw. I made two stations by making circles from the noodles and, using colored duck tape, put them on larger noodles. They looked like Olympic rings between two posts. The kids were divided into two teams to throw through the circle. Fifth graders had so much fun…great to see kiddos being kids.” – Susan Heneka
“I have my fifth graders (who are graduating and moving to a new school) take a Memory Walk around the school and say good-bye to teachers and think about special memories they have made. We make a Memory Mat of favorite memories…friends, teachers, events…and we write letters to favorite teachers.” – Chris Thompson
We’d love to hear from you! In the comments, share some of your “must dos” for the end of the school year! Good luck, and happy teaching!
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