It’s been ANOTHER crazy year together. But you know what hasn’t wavered? The strong classroom community that you all have built and sustained together. It’s time to end how you started it; like a family. In this post, you’ll learn some fun and engaging ways to end the school year strong and keep that little family bonding until the last day!
Spread the Love
Here’s an awesome activity that turns into a lovely keepsake for your students. Each day, create an anchor chart for a student and have all the other students write what they’ve loved about them throughout the year. At the end of the day, gather and share all the nice things students wrote about that person and allow them to take it home as a gift! It’s such an easy and meaningful activity for students. You will hear SO many sweet things and it’s something for them to cherish for forever! 
Count it Down
Make every last day count together with a fun themed countdown! Setup your balloon bulletin board with THIS freebie and have a blast continuing those connections and make those last days together really special. From Crazy Hair Day to Nickname Day, your students will enjoy and love those themed days while continuing to create new memories together!
Or have everything done for you with the digital and interactive End of Year Countdown Display!
Reflect & Show Off!
You’ve done A LOT of learning as a family this year. Take the time to reflect on that together and celebrate all the great accomplishments you all have made! A brain dump is an easy and engaging activity because it’s as simple as a piece of anchor chart paper and their brains. Have some sweet carpet time and discuss ALL the things you’ve learned throughout the year. It’s rather impressive to see what they come up with. You can check out some of ours from first grade below! Then, after dumping brains, allow students to go off and show what they know with a topic of their choice. It’s learning AND fun that students LOVE!
Another fun way to have students show off how they’ve shined this year is with this reflection writing craft! Being able to reflect is an important skill, not just for students, but all of us. It helps us to grow and learn from past experiences and gives us joy to remember what we’ve already mastered and overcome. Students will love completing this adorable craft while reflecting on what they’ve learned this year!
Treasured Memories
180 days is a lot of days to create a lot of memories, some tough, some sweet, and others downright hilarious. These are things that will be cherished for a lifetime. Get nostalgic with your students by reflecting on those memories together while creating a personalized keepsake! Have students create their own flipbook with an individualized topper that represents THEM! It’ll be something that can look back on for years to come.
End of the Year Memory Flipbooks
Get Moving!
We know the end of the year is CRAZY! Why not make use of all that vibrating energy they have with some fun team building activities?! One of our favorites is a good game of what you rather. We like to add a movement piece by having students run to either side of the classroom based on their answer. You can have them pair up with someone with the same or opposite answer as them to talk about why they chose that answer. It’s a great way to continue connecting, moving, and having fun!
End of the Year Would You Rather
Another great team building activity that helps release that extra energy is with a scavenger hunt! Divide them into teams and let them go explore! They can search the classroom, the building, or even get them outside to find items you’ve set them out to scavenge for. Another super fun end of the year activity to keep your classroom community going strong until the last day!
Digital Editable Scavenger Hunt
Minute to Win it!
These games are a BLAST! Teamwork is a must for students to win and they will have SO much fun working together to try and beat these challenging tasks in 60 seconds. Check out some of my favorite end of the year minute to win it games below:
- Solo Racing: Students receive a straw and solo cup as their only materials to race their cups to the finish line. Each player on their team has to try to blow their solo cup across a designated space (a few desks together work great!) before the other team! Make sure to clearly mark the starting and ending points with tape for students. Not only do teams have a great time, they also get some meaningful time to practice being a cheerleader for their teammates!
- Cookie Face: Who doesn’t love food and fun?! Each player on the team has to sit an Oreo in the middle of their forehead. Using ONLY their face, the challenge is to get the cookie in their mouth. The first team to get their cookies to their mouth first wins! It’s a pretty funny sight to see them squirm to try and get the cookie down their face, you’ll get lots of laughs, and of course they get a delicious snack when they succeed!
- Marshmallow Windstorm: Teams are divided up on either side of a table with a piece of masking tape down the middle. They have to use straws to blow as many marshmallows on the other side of the tape as they can in one minute. The team with the most wins!
- Puzzle Palooza: Divide teams up and have them work together to complete a puzzle before the other teams do. Simply use puzzles that have the same amount of pieces and let students get to constructing! This can be done with classroom created puzzles like 100 charts or dollar store puzzles!
- Build it Up: Have students work together to create the tallest structure they can in one minute. This can be done with any material such as cups, blocks, or anything else you have on hand. The team with the tallest standing structure at the end wins!
If you love these, you’ll love the complete End of the Year Minute to Win Activity Pack complete with embedded 60 second timers, activity directions, and slide displays!
End of the Year Minute it to Win it Activity Pack
Our Class will Always be a Family
Your class will always feel like a family after all the time you’ve spent together and all the memories you’ve made. A great end of the year activity to cherish forever is to create a classroom yearbook together. I love reading Our Class is A Family by Shannon Olsen before putting together our own yearbook. Check out this adorable classroom craft that you can add however many pages to accommodate your students and let them decorate their book. Have enough wallet sized photos of the students to paste on the pages and then give them some time to sign each other’s books on their page. They will enjoy this last little bit of time together and have something to remember all of their friends by. Grab it FREE by subscribing!
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I really hope you enjoyed learning about ways to end the year strong with your students and the community you’ve built together! Don’t forget to subscribe to my email list! Not only will you get the most up to date tips, tricks, and classroom projects… and of course more fun FREEBIES including the Brag Tag FREEBIE! You will also have exclusive access to tons of digital how to videos! If you would like to learn about this and other things happening in my classroom follow me @sweetnsauerfirsties on Instagram.
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