11 Ideas for End of Year Activities
What an exciting time of the year! Your main lessons and topics are complete and the pupils are getting excited for their summer holidays. It can be a challenging time to keep pupils engaged in classroom lessons due to exciting events on the horizon like school tours or sports days, so I like to keep things light and fun and still try to ensure the learning is taking place. Usually, we are blessed with drier and warmer weather more often at this time of the year too, so a lot of our day can be spent outdoors.
It can of course be difficult to come up with ideas, so I have put some of my favourites, and ones I plan to do myself to wind down the school year, have fun with my class and get the pupil’s excitement going for summer!
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Move your lessons outdoors
There is nothing nicer when the weather is dry, than to take the pupil’s reading books or class novels outside for a reading lesson. With the younger classes, doing your read-aloud outdoors would be a lovely idea too! The outdoors provides lots of space for drama role-play and Reader’s Theatre based on a read-aloud or novel you are reading in class.
Likewise, for maths, SESE, Gaeilge, try to think of ways to bring your lessons outside! Do a walking debate on the yard, a maths trail around the school grounds, or explore some habitats for wildlife.
Let the pupils be the teachers!
Have the pupils create some lessons that they would either like to teach their peers about based on a topic of interest, or to prepare a lesson that they think the class next year will be learning about!
Have some fun with chalk outside
Why not get the children to create some gorgeous messages and drawings on the paths in your locality!?
Check out these examples for inspiration!
Create an end of year memory book
There are so many ways to create an end of year memory book. I love creating one usually that is completely handmade and includes art from the pupils from throughout the year, pictures of the pupils with their classmates, along with some nice topics like favourite memories, information about their teacher, their plans for summer or what they are looking forward to, and their thoughts about moving up a class year in school next year.
Check out our free end of year resources, including memory book HERE!
Here are some other examples of memory books:
Countdown to summer or ‘End the year with a bang’!
Some ideas of what you could have in the balloons might be having a popcorn party, outdoor classroom day, outdoor picnic, ice-lolly treats, PE or games afternoon, art day, pizza party or baking. There are always factors to consider for the rewards you can offer your class such as school policies, allergies and the weather!
Go for a nature walk or field trip to a local forest or river
While you are there, you could collect some wild flowers, natural materials or fallen leaves for art!
End of Year Awards Ceremony
Create some end of year awards for classmates. Have the pupils vote for what they think each of their friends should be nominated for! Awards might include ‘Mathematician of the Year’, ‘Tables Champion of the Year’, or ‘Artist of the Year’.
You could hold an official awards ceremony near to the last day of school with certificates being awarded, with children dressing in their own clothes, a host to run the ceremony and a disco afterwards!
Summer Bucket List
End of year Read-Alouds
This is a perfect time of the year to read aloud more than ever and have the children engage in lots of activities based on the read-aloud. For older pupils you could still use big books as a stimulus for SPHE lessons on moving on to secondary school or reflecting on their primary school days.
Here are some of the books I have planned to use this month:
Write a Survival Guide for next year's class coming into that year group
Create a growing tree for you to keep to remind you of your class and display it in your room
As always, this is by no means a comprehensive list of end of year activities, there are so many wonderful ideas out there! These are just a few of the ideas I have planned for my class for the month of June. I will also do lots of summer themed arts and crafts activities and make sure that I look for suggestions from my class as to what would make their last month of school this year memorable and enjoyable!
Have a great last few weeks, and always remember to have fun!
Talk soon,
Nadine
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