Making the Most of
End-of-School Days

"No more pencils, no more books,
no more..."

No more time? The last days of school may be upon us and your students may already be chanting the traditional end-of-school cheer, but that doesn't mean that you have to succumb to the temptation to start summer early. Why throw away the last few precious days? Instead, blow your students away with some cool end-of-year activities that combine fun and learning. Included: Links to dozens of additional activities to fill the final days.

More Ideas for
End-of-Year

You'll find more great end-of-year ideas in these articles from the Education World archive:
* Wind Up Learning as the Year Winds Down: Activities for the Last Days of School
* A 'Boring' Lesson in Geography
* Invent Your Own Poetry Form: An End-of-the-Year Activity
* Phone Book Math
* Mystery States Game
* It's Up for Debate
* Math Fun -- Volume 1
* Math Fun -- Volume 2
* We've Got News for You (Activities for Teaching With the Newspaper)
* Make the 'Write' Impression
* More 'Write' Stuff
* Ten Games for Classroom Fun
* Don't Waste a Minute
* Crisscrossing the Country: Scavenger Hunts for Kids of All Ages
* Rock or Feather: A Critical-Thinking Activity
* ABC Books Aren't for Babies
* A Month With No Holidays? Make Up Your Own
* Whiteboards Stimulate Student Learning
* Summer Reading Lists Abound on the Web
* Kids Learn About Differences from A Walk in Your Shoes
* Student Essays Describe 'Perfect' School
* Interest Grows in Checkbook Math Lessons
* Wax Museum Biographies Teach and Entertain
* Students Create a Virtual Tour of Their Community

With less than a week of school left, the kids are already off the wall. Don't give up on this school year too soon, though. Just because books have been tucked into storage and final exams are done, that doesn't mean that the remaining school days should be wasted!

Many schools use the final days of the year to turn themselves into continuing learning centers. In those schools, every teacher plans a special mini course based on an area of personal interest. Mini courses run the gamut -- baseball math to bike maintenance to bread baking to bowling and beyond. Kids sign up for two 2-hour sessions each day. Mini courses allow students to mix with different groups of kids while keeping them busy and happy!

It might be too late for you to organize mini courses for the last few days of this school year, but you can still keep students happily and productively occupied. All you need is a plan -- and Education World has all the plans you'll need!

FIVE END-OF-YEAR LESSONS

This week, Education World offers five lesson plans to help you fill the final hours of the school year. Click each lesson headline below for a complete teaching resource. (Approximate grade levels for each activity are indicated in parentheses.) If you don't find the perfect idea below, scan the article sidebar for more possibilities!

Thinking Ahead to Next Year
Invite your students to leave behind advice for those who will follow in their footsteps or to write informative letters to the teachers who will teach them next year.

Create a Class Yearbook
Create keepsake yearbooks of memories about the school year that's ending.

An Autograph Book from Yesteryear
Explore a school autograph book from the 1880s, and invite students to create contemporary versions.

Math Bingo
Adapt the game Bingo to provide math-facts practice for K-12 students.

Design a Poet-T
Turn plain white T-shirts into fabulous poet-T's.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

As we searched the Web for end-of-year resources, we found a few more ideas that might help you fill the final days:

Slow Bike Race (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)

Mighty M&M Math Activity

Students Offer End-of-Year Feedback

Originally published 5/31/2002
Last updated 04/23/2009