Ten Day Countdown Activities for the End of the Year
Go out with a bang at the end of your school year! 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
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
We hold a meeting and a vote to select the movie. We eat lunch in the classroom together and start the movie.
Dance Party Day
Kids bring in the name of their favorite song on paper. I throw the suggestions in a hat and use at Dance Party time. Then I use my Spotify app or Amazon Echo Dot to tell “Alexa” to play the favorites. The kids think I’m quite cool using it with them. They are into Freeze Dancing. I turn my back on them & stop the music. I quickly spin around and try to catch someone not frozen.
Game Day
Kids bring in a favorite board or card game from home. Favorite games like Candyland, Sorry, Chutes and Ladders, Uno and Twister always come in. I usually end up having these handy in the classroom on a regular basis too! Step it up with this new Twister Ultimate version! Lots more can play at a time & it uses Alexa! Start the 60-90 minute game time with a meeting about logistics. I draw out 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. Next I select the rest of the kids’ lucky sticks to pick the game they would like to play. After about 20 minutes have a new meet up and repeat with more rounds. The goal is to give everyone who brought a game a turn to lead & teach their game.
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 I send them off to find comfortable spots to stretch out on their towels. They can read independently or with a friend!
Build a Fort Day
Kids use towels & blankets to turn their desk/table area into a fort. They get to work in their fort throughout 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. Set up tents & teepees in your center areas. 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. That made it 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.
I love all the activities at the end of the year that make learning and coming to school so fun!
End of the Year Gifts
I love using WordArt.com to make individual memory pages for each of my kids. The pages are super easy to make. They turn out so cute! I’m sure a few parents a had them framed! I purchased a one-month membership for $29.99. The membership turned out cheaper than the download package of 25. 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.
