10 End of School Year Activities: Helpful Tips for Teachers
Published: July 23, 2021
With the end of school year rapidly approaching, many teachers (and in some cases, parents) are looking for ways to close it out on a high note.
Whether you’re ending the year online, in-person, or via a hybrid approach, there are activities for everyone on this list. No matter what you choose to do, your students will be hoping for fun, stress-free, and memorable final days. That’s why we’ve compiled this list of ideas to help you plan.
Let’s take a look at these end of school activities for all grade levels.
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10 End of School Year Activities and Ideas
1. Farewell Videos
You can prompt your students to take part in creating end of year videos. There’s a fun app and tool called FlipGrid which allows teachers to share prompts and students to respond to them via video. Some ideas for farewell video prompts could be, “What did you learn this year?” “What was your most memorable moment?” “What do you hope the next school year brings?”
Given that the 2020-2021 school year was especially unique, this could be a nice way to turn lemons into lemonade by focusing on the positives.
2. Make a class playlist
Hearing music is a surefire way to spark memories. In fact, there have been studies that show there’s “a high degree of overlap between working memory for music stimuli and for verbal stimuli.”
Using shared platforms like Spotify, you can involve your students in creating a playlist for the year that can be shared and listened to at any time. Creating a collaborative playlist is one way to etch the memories of the class in the minds of your students.
3. Let students teach
Want to take a break from teaching while also teaching? In the final days of class, you can have your students prepare to teach their own lessons. This is a great way to help students hone their presentation and communication skills. While you proctor the lesson and can jump in to correct any mistakes, you can also sit back and see how much your students have learned.
4. Letters of recommendation
If you’re a high school teacher, then spending some time in the last few days of the school year to write or help students with letters of recommendation is a great use of time. For many colleges, letters of recommendation are required to apply. You could either have students interview you to find out what you would say about them and then allow them to write the letter up themself before you sign, or you can create it yourself.
5. Letter to future self
As time passes, it’s easy to forget what your younger self once hoped for in the future. Give your students time to write future letters to themselves. Then, you can collect them, along with addresses, and send them to your students a few years in the future. Or, you can let your students take them home and promise to keep them somewhere safe, only to return and reread them in a couple of years.
This is not only a fun way for students to remember who they once were and what they hoped for, but it’s also a nice exercise for students to be able to put their hopes, dreams, and thoughts into words today.
6. Reflections and share
It’s always enjoyable to take part in a collaborative activity. By inviting your students to write down their reflections about the year and share, you open the door to discussion and deeper connection.
It’s also a method to receive feedback about your progress and success as a teacher. You can ask students to share what they learned most about and open the door to questions, too.
7. Top 10 list
In the same vein as reflections, you can make it simpler by creating top 10 lists. Ask students to share their top 10 memories from the year, top 10 challenges, top 10 funniest moments, top 10 unforgettable moments, or anything similar.
If you’re in-person in a classroom, students can write these on notecards and pass them around. If you do this virtually, go around and ask people to share them verbally.
8. Virtual yearbook
Most students are used to receiving yearbooks to close out the year. However, given the different set of circumstances over the previous year, this may not be happening for them. Instead, you can create virtual yearbooks and share them with the class.
Using Google Slides, each student can upload their photo and a favorite quote, memory, or other shareable snippet of information. Then, you can look through it during class time and/or send a shareable link to your students.
9. Trivia day
The end of the school year should feel stress-free and easy. Hosting a day of trivia is a great way to bring everyone together while still learning! You can even involve families if you host this over Zoom or online. Incorporate concepts that you taught through the year in this gamified manner to test your students’ knowledge.
10. Award ceremony
With any grade level, you can host an awards ceremony. Awards can be given for reasons like: most improved learner, class clown, most effort, best speller, etc. Depending on the grade level you teach, you can adjust the titles of the awards. If you’re teaching digitally, email awards and host a ceremony. If you’re in person, you can print out certificates.
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The Bottom Line
The end of school year activities you choose to lead are entirely up to you. With so many options, you can surely find the ones that are right for your unique classroom.
Or, you can take a poll and involve your students so that everyone has a say in how they get to spend their final days together to culminate the school year.