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For The Love of Teachers

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5 Must Do End of the Year Activities

For The Love of Teachers Blog: 5 Must Do End of School Activities

The end of the school year is fast approaching and it is so bittersweet! The students that you have grown to love will be on their way soon enough. But now is the best time to start thinking about some activities that your kiddos will love, remember, and treasure. Here are 5 must-do end of the year activities that can be adapted and modified to any grade level.

Farewell Letter

Ok, so this one is really for the teacher. I always ask my students to individually write a farewell letter to me. They can tell me anything they want, like how they are feeling, their thoughts, summer plans, hopes for next year, etc. I love receiving these letters and have been completely blown away by some of them. Some are extremely emotional and make me so sad. Some are short and sweet, like a high five, and thanks for teaching me. And some are all about students reflecting on the current school year and how much they have grown and will miss school. These letters always touch my heart. I keep these letters each year to remind me of my students and why I teach. So these farewell letters are a treasured memory for me from all of the kiddos I have taught throughout the years. Your students could write these letters on any lined paper or on a letter template.

For The Love of Teachers Blog: End of Year Activity

For The Love of Teachers Blog: End of Year Activity

Autobiography Book

This is a great end of year writing project.  I model this project with my own autobiography book and have used this simple Autobiography Book Template after students are done with the drafting process in their writer’s journal. Each page in the book has a different heading. The kids come up with creative ways to title the following headings/sections. They can write a paragraph or more about the following:

  • All About Me (age, physical or personality description)

  • Family (parents/guardians, siblings, pets, other special family members)

  • School life (grade, teacher, school, favorite subjects/projects, talents, skills)

  • Hobbies/Interest

  • Accomplishments (awards, trophies, acknowledgments)

  • Future Hopes & Dreams (personal, school, or future career-related goals)

    For The Love of Teachers Blog: End of Year Activity

Some students choose to add more pages or headings. They add photos and illustrations to each page, color, and design. We then spiral bind the books. They come out really nice. It’s a great memory for students, especially when they look back on their book in a few years. Parents like this project too, for it serves as a keepsake for them as well.

autobiography book

You can get my updated Autobiography Book here. It comes with a variety of blank templates too.

This Autobiography now comes in Google Slides too.

You can shop directly at For The Love of Teachers: Autobiography Book, Autobiography Google Slides, and Autobiography with Non-Fiction Text and Graphic Features.

Remembering Classmates

This one is for the kiddos from their community of friends. Type the name of each student on a separate piece of paper and circulate all papers around the classroom (so if you have 25 students, 25 papers are circulating the classroom). Each student has to write a compliment about the classmate on the page. The pages go around the room until all the papers receive compliments from every classmate. No repeats…so the kids have to read the compliments already written and come up with something original! Each child gets their page full of compliments from their classmates as a memory. This activity truly makes every child smile! Add one for yourself as a memory too!

For The Love of Teachers Blog: End of Year Activity

End of Year Newspaper

My students LOVE creating end of the year memory books or our favorite, a newspaper. Our end of year newspaper has been a keepsake for my students to capture many of the memorable events and moments that occurred during the school year. It’s easy to print and reuse year after year.  My students and their families loved it. It includes seven pages that are easy to print front to back.

  • Read All About It Page (cover)

  • Noteworthy News (2)

  • Live Coverage (2- for photos and drawings)

  • Breaking News: How I’ve Changed

  • Breaking News: Future Leaders (Classmates Autographs)

  • Blank News Template

end of year newspaper- For The Love of Teachers Shop

You can get the print and go end of year newspaper here, the digital version PowerPoint version here, and the Google Slides version here.

You can shop directly at For The Love of Teachers: End of Year Newspaper (Print & Go), End of Year Newspaper (PowerPoint), and End of Year Newspaper (Google Slides).

Letter of Advice

Love this one too! Each student writes a letter to an upcoming student for the following year. They give them advice about how to be the best student and give them a heads-up about the classroom rules, routines, and procedures. Tells them about, yours truly, as their teacher. They share their favorite projects and what to look forward to. The kids absolutely love this. They feel like they are the “big kids” now giving advice to the “younger” crowd coming up. I collect these letters and put one letter on the desktop of each of my new students the following September. My new students really like getting a letter from a “big kid” and appreciate the advice from my former students. These letters help alleviate any anxiety they are feeling and answer questions that they may be thinking about. The kids write it on lined paper or any letter template.

These are just a few of my end of my year faves. Change them up as you see fit for the grade level you teach or maybe these ideas will spark other ideas. Just have fun with it and enjoy the last few weeks of school!

Have some end of year activities that you love? I’d love to hear some more ideas. Share how you spend the last few weeks of school making it memorable and fun for both you and your students.

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Other End of Year Resources

Shop TPT: End of Year Memory Book (Bee Theme)

Shop at For The Love of Teachers: End of Year Memory Book (Bee Theme)

End of Year Memory Book

 

Shop TPT: End of Year Awards: Bitmoji

Shop at For The Love of Teachers: End of Year Awards (Bitmoji)

End of Year Awards at For The Love of Teachers Shop

Related Posts:

5 Meaningful Ways to Engage Students at the End of the Year

How To Survive The Final Weeks of The School Year- Teacher’s Edition

Tips for Getting Organized Before School Is Out

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For The Love of Teachers: 5 Must Do End of School Activities

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Comments

  1. Kim Lepre says

    I love these ideas! My favorites are definitely the farewell letter and letter of advice! I think it helps students really put into perspective how much they’ve learned and accomplished.

    Great products to accompany these ideas!

    Reply

    • Christine Weis says

      Thanks Kim! I love saving and reading the farewell letters years after. They are special memories of my students. Thanks for reading!
      Christine at For The Love of Teachers

      Reply

  2. Cindy says

    Wow! Wish our teachers make us do this. I only have a slam book and photographs as memories from school. Some of us are still in touch. I can probably make my daughter make a thank you card for the teachers of her class/school. Thanks for sharing this idea Christine!

    Reply

    • Christine Weis says

      Thanks Cindy! I appreciate your comment! I bet your daughter will have so much fun making cards for her teacher and classmates.
      Christine at For The Love of Teachers

      Reply

  3. Made Adayasa says

    I like most of the idea . But to late for me , If I read this threed before I will not difficult to remember again all my class mate .

    Very important article to read , thanks for sharing

    Best regards
    Made in Bali

    Reply

  4. Larissa says

    I love the Letter of Advice idea! I wish when I was in school we did something like that. We did write a letter to our future selves, and that was kind of cool. We wrote it in middle school, and our teachers sent it to us when we were seniors in high school. It was crazy to get a letter from myself! I’ve also done the Remembering Classmates activity, and I think it’s pretty cool to see what your peers/classmates think of you!

    Reply

    • Christine Weis says

      Thanks for your comment Larissa! I like the idea of writing to your future selves. What a way to reflect upon how you’ve grown. Thanks for sharing that! I love the Remembering Classmates activity too.
      Christine at For The Love of Teachers

      Reply

  5. Brenna says

    Oh my gosh I just love these ideas!! These are so much fun! I have so many teacher friends, I am totally passing this along!!!

    Reply

  11. Charlie says

    Love these ideas – both my parents and my only sibling are teachers – so I’m the odd one out! I’m sure that they would appreciate any one of these 🙂

    Reply

  12. Andrea says

    Oh this is all so sweet. Gosh, it really takes a special person to be such a thoughtful teacher. I would love to have these memories from my childhood. Great job.

    Reply

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