The end of the school year is such a busy time. Time flies are you are finishing up grades, organizing your classroom, and waiting anxiously to find out what you will be teaching next year. But through all the hustle and bustle, the kids are still coming to school each day, and it takes just a little more effort to keep them engaged in learning. This is especially true after devices are collected, now that we have integrated some form of technology into so much of what we do. Don't worry, with a little bit of advanced planning, there are plenty of great project ideas to keep kids learning up until the last day! If they are busy actively learning, they will have less time to get anxious about the last day, keeping classroom behavior in check. Below is a list of ideas compiled from various blogs and teacher websites. Enjoy!
Creative ways to spend the last few weeks of school, technology free!
Google Hangouts/Skype
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Participate in Google Hangouts with feeder schools and have kids ask questions about their upcoming year. (Only the teacher needs a computer for this one.)
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Themed Party
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Let the kids make groups and plan all the activities, decorations, music, food and more.
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Book Hall-of-Fame
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Have each student write (or draw) a reflection on the best book they read over the year. Then, save their reflections and post them on a bulletin board so that next year's students can glean reading ideas.
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Dear Next Year's Class
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Have your students write letters of advice to next year's students. Or, they can create a bulletin board of advice welcoming next year’s students.
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Egg Drop! Water Balloon
Drop!
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Many schools save the last days of school for their annual "egg drop" activity. Each student works within guidelines to fashion a container for an egg so that the egg won't break when the student drops it from an established height -- using a tall ladder, or from the school's roof.
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Put on a play
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Students can write their own script, or you might use a script you find online. If you're looking for a great resource, see the Education World story All the Classroom's a Stage!
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Have students write letters to themselves.
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Ask your students to write themselves a letter, reviewing the year and making “resolutions” for the next school year. Give them some prompts to write about: one thing they are proud of from this year, one thing they would like to do differently next year, one thing they want to remember, and so on. You can either mail these letters to your students just before the start of the next school year, or make arrangements with their next teachers to distribute the letters at the start of school.
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Service Projects
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Take this time to get involved with a cause that is meaningful to you or your students? Students can write letters to government leaders, organize fundraisers, or create pamphlets or flyers addressing a particular issue. You can build off world events, tackle an issue you read about during the year, or just ask students what issues matter to them.
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STEM/STEAM challenges
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Plant a garden
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Have students improve the outside of the school by adding flowers. Have them call local nurseries to see what can be donated.
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“My classmates and I were given an index card for each student in class, along with a brown paper bag. We were asked to decorate the bags with our names and things we remembered from the school year. After we were done decorating our bags, she told us to write one nice thing we remembered about each of our classmates and place them in their bag. We were allowed to do this anonymously. Later, we were allowed to go through our bags and read all of the nice things our fellow classmates had said about us. It was wonderful.
What a great way to spend a few minutes reading what other people thought about you – in a positive way. In my classrooms I’ve added a few caveats when I do this activity. I gather up the cards and double-check them just to ensure that nothing inappropriate gets put in someone’s bag. I express my expectations for positive comments and offer some suggestions for nice, neutral comments for students who don’t know each other well or who don’t like each other. I think this is important too, because it teaches students the valuable lesson of looking for the good in other people – even if they don’t really get along. More often than not, I’m thrilled with the thoughtful responses my students come up with for each other. I’ve also added a brown bag for myself – hey, we need to hear the good things our students think about us too!”
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Show What You Know
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Give students an opportunity to teach the rest of the class something, like origami, a new app, or a martial arts self-defense move. Students create a lesson and share with others.
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“This fun activity will get your students thinking and writing creatively. For an end of the year writing activity I filled a picnic basket with various summer items - beach towel, pail, sand molds, mask, swimsuit, apple, shells, juice bottle, toy dolphin, etc. - and had the students pick 10 items to write a story using these items in the story. After I put everything back I asked the students to write as many of the items down as they could remember (20 in all), just for fun! They loved it.”
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Scrabble Tournaments
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10 Poetry Scholarships for Creative Students has a list of opportunities for students of all ages to receive recognition and scholarship prizes for their work.
