When the school year ends, you must go out with a bang! End of the year activities must be memorable and make your students want to get up and come to school EVERY SINGLE DAY! It’s the end and we want all laughs and no tears!
This is my 10 Day Countdown list of end of the year activities for classroom celebrations that will help commemorate your time together.
Ten Day Countdown Activities
Download Europe’s “The Final Countdown” & play it at the start of your daily meeting, at the end of your closing meeting or both for the last ten days. Students will listen and sing along to start their final school days. It gets them energized and gives them another common song that binds them together in these last sad days. Music is so powerful!
In my classroom I start the End of the Year Activities by, stringing up and numbering a batch of balloons with the numbers 0-10. Before I blew up each balloon, I slipped a piece of paper in each one announcing the special activity for the next day. We popped one at the end of each day to find out the next fun activity to look forward to. I prepared parents ahead of time with a list of things to have on hand for these days. I also sent home a reminder in their folders with what the next day would bring.So, each morning I play “The Final Countdown” song, announce and enjoy the days’ special activity. Then we end our meeting with popping a balloon and announcing the next days’ activity. Your kids will really enjoy rocking out and bringing back air guitar, I promise!!
Now when you want to change it up, they even love the Youtube Spongebob version! Oh my goodness!
Here’s more details about how we celebrate with a Ten Day Countdown at the end of the year.
Or click here to see how it’s done virtually!
Lunch & Movie Day – Kids bring their lunch, we eat outside if weather permits and watch a movie. We have a meeting prior to watching with suggestions and kids vote for their favorite.
Dance Party Day – Kids bring in the name of their favorite song on paper. I collect them and use them to DJ when it’s Dance Party time. I use my Spotify app. They are into Freeze Dance where I turn my back on them & stop music before spinning around and trying to catch someone not frozen.
Game Day – Kids bring in a favorite board or card game from home. Games like Candyland, Sorry, Chutes and Ladders, Uno and Twister always come in. When it’s game time – allow 60-90 minutes – we all meet on the carpet. I draw about a third of my kids using my lucky sticks. These kids grab their game, a game spot, and start setting it up ready to teach others. Then I select the rest of the kids to pick the game they would like to play. We do a second and third round in the same way to give everyone who brought a game a turn.
Read Aloud Outside Day – Kids bring a beach towel & their favorite book from home. We go near our outdoor classroom & I bring a favorite chapter book we’ve been reading – it’s usually Junie B. Jones – and I read a few chapters aloud. Then they are off to find great comfortable spots to stretch out on their towels and read independently or with a friend.
Build a Fort Day – Kids use towels & blankets to turn their desk/table area into a fort for working in during the day.
Ice Cream Day – I use a Signup Genius list for parents to send in all the ingredients to make Ice Cream Sundaes. We have an ice cream craftivity we do on this day, too.
Beach/Pirate Day – Dress like a pirate or a beach goer and read pirate books. Teach them pirate words, give them pirate names & try to use their new pirate name throughout the day.
Camping Day – Kids bring flashlights & dress like campers. Show them how to make s’mores & write an informative piece about how to do it. Bring a real tent and decorate with some campy things. Turn out the lights and play flashlight games.
Bubble Gum Day – Teach them about the origin of bubble gum. Read bubble gum books & show them how to blow a bubble. Do bubble gum activities from TeachersPayTeachers.
Awards Day & Last Day of School! – Invite parents ahead of time to your and present your awards & end of year slideshow. I used a packet of Powerpoint Awards I already purchased from Haley’s O’Connor’s End of the Year Survival Kit. They are editable and I copied them to my slideshow that I will share with my families on this day. I used Google Slides for this and a presentation chock full of pictures throughout the year. My parents added them to a folder I created on my Drive so that they were easy enough to pop into my slideshow. My all time favorite end-of-the-year tear jerker is Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World. It always is the perfect song to put with adorable children’s photos.
End of the Year Gifts
I was so excited to grab up the idea of using WordArt.com to make an individual memory page for each of my kids. They are super easy and turn out so cute that their parents are going to want to frame these! I decided to purchase a one-month membership for $29.99 which turned out cheaper than the 25 download package. Please click this link
The kids helped me create a giant list of all the fun we had this year and I made sure I had their own personal favorites emphasized. I used their favorite colors to personalize their own WordArt that I can upload and send right to them.
