As the school year winds down, it’s important to find meaningful ways to celebrate the year with intention. Drawing on ideas from our Teacher Approved community, we explore countdowns, theme days, and creative class celebrations that bring both fun and purpose to those final weeks. These strategies will help keep students engaged, create lasting memories, and honor the classroom community you’ve built, so you can wrap up the year in a way that feels thoughtful, memorable, and manageable.

Prefer to read? Grab the episode transcript and resources in the show notes here: https://www.secondstorywindow.net/podcast/last-week-of-school-activities-elementary/

Resources:

• Summer Review Packets
• DLITE Day Packets
• Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
• Jane & Edward: A Modern Reimagining of Jane Eyre by Melodie Edward
• Check out our book Structure and Spark
• Join The Teacher Approved Club
• Connect with us on Instagram @2ndstorywindow
• Shop our teacher-approved resources
• Join our Teacher Approved Facebook group
• Leave a review on Apple Podcasts!
• Leave a comment or rating on Spotify

Related Episodes to Enjoy:

• Episode 195. Ditch the Countdown: A Better Way to Create End of Year Closure
• Episode 62. End of Year Awards: 5 Reasons You Should Rethink This Classroom Tradition
• Episode 7. The Secret to End of Year Survival
• Episode 196. The 3 Step Plan to Park Those School Thoughts and Enjoy Your Summer Break

Mentioned in this episode:

Join the Teacher Approved Club, where members get seasonal morning work pages for grades K–5 this month to add fall and holiday fun without throwing off their routines: https://secondstorywindow.net/club

This is episode 258 of Teacher Approved.

Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. As we move

further into May, it's starting to feel real. The end of the

school year is right around the corner, and so that's why we are

bringing back one of our favorite episodes, all about end

of Year celebrations.

This isn't just about filling time or throwing a

party. It's about helping your class feel closure and ending

the year on purpose instead of just sliding into summer. This

episode will give you practical ideas and a clear way to think

about celebrations so they work for you and your students.

And what's extra fun is that these ideas come from you,

our listeners. So whether you're planning something big, keeping

it simple, or still not sure what your end of year will look

like, this is a great place to start.

Let's get into it.

You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping

educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm

Heidi.

And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story

Window, where we give research-based and teacher

approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more

effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from

each episode at secondstorywindow.net.

We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to

the show.

Let's talk about this week's resource of the week, our

summer review packets. Over the years, we have often been asked

which grade level of our spiral review morning work would work

best for students to practice with during the summer. So we

decided it was time to make a dedicated summer review packet.

Unlike a lot of other summer review packets you may

see around the internet that contain a bunch of different

types of worksheets, ours is a carefully designed review that

packs in as much practice as possible on each page. The

questions follow a pattern, so students will be familiar with

the weekly activities quickly.

Each grade level has the same format as the morning work

for that grade level, so it's the perfect practice for your

students if they've already been doing the morning work with you.

But it's also designed to work as a standalone resource for

students who have never done any of our morning work.

Each packet contains 50 pages of math and ELA spiral

review, which is 10 weeks worth of content. And of course, we

include an answer key as well.

While these pages are perfect for a summer review,

they also make a wonderful end of your cumulative review in

class. You can find our summer packets at

secondstorywindow.net/summerpackets, and the link will be in our show

notes.

I don't know if you guys have noticed, but here in the

US, the end of the school year is almost upon us.

Well, unless you teach year round.

Year round teachers, you have our condolences.

So that brings us to the topic of, how do you end a

school year?

We put so much, so much thought and energy into starting

the school year, but I think we are all running on fumes by the

end. There is just not much time or energy left to close out the

year. You maybe have noticed this, but we still want it to

matter.

I think if 2020, taught us anything, it's that ending,

well, matters. That abrupt ending we had that year just

really stung.

And it still stings, if I'm being honest.

That was rough for us.

Our little preschoolers went home one day and just never

came back.

Yeah.

So how do we celebrate in a tangible way the moment that

is the end of the school year?

Well, there's no right or wrong answer. It's just about

choosing something that feels meaningful to you.

Right. So I'd start by asking myself how to acknowledge

the community that has grown in my classroom during the year,

and then I would look for ways to celebrate those small humans

that have just come to take up so much of my heart. And I don't

mean that does sound serious or solemn, even if the end of the

year can feel heavy, or not, depending on the year you've

had. But I think a lot of times the most tangible way to

celebrate a shared experience is to have fun together.

Right. So with that in mind, we asked the Teacher

Approved community to share the ways they celebrate the end of

the year, and they offered such engaging suggestions that we

want to pass them on to you.

So one activity that was mentioned several times was

doing an alphabet countdown. If you aren't familiar with this,

each day during the last few weeks of school, you do a fun

activity from A to Z. Lisa shared these suggestions. A is

an all about me sheet that they can share with the class. B is

sit by a buddy day, I is for ice pops from the teacher. Her

countdown lasts for 23 days because she combined some days.

Those are such fun ideas, and I love that she keeps it

simple. She could have done Baking Beautiful Banana Bread

day for B. That's a ton of commitment to stretch out over

20 plus days.

Yeah, you're gonna burn out real quick if you feel like

you have to make something a big production in order for it to be

a celebration. And please note that that comment was directed

largely my own go-big-or-go-home tendencies, but Lisa was smart

to choose something like sitting by a buddy as a celebration.

It's low effort from the teacher side, but it would be so fun and

memorable for the students.

Yeah, I love that. I would love to know what other

suggestions teachers have for their alphabet countdowns,

especially for those trickier letters. If you've got a good

idea for Q or any other letter, will you come share it in the

Teacher Approved Facebook group?

Yeah, I'm really curious to hear other suggestions.

But if you don't want to commit to a 26 day countdown,

Dawn has this suggestion. We do a balloon pop the last 10 days,

with each balloon containing a card with a special activity,

like outdoor chalk day or yoga time.

Yoga! There we go. There's our Y. And I think the

balloon popping would be a definite hit with the kids.

Maggie suggested a quieter type of countdown. She

says, my class made a paper chain. Each child got one to two

strips of paper, enough to make as many links as we needed for

the number of days left. On their own slip of paper, they

wrote something they have been grateful for at school this

year. Each morning, we take one off, and the student who wrote

it gets to read it to the class and then hang it on our grateful

wall.

I love how thoughtful and reflective that is. It's such a

beautiful way to add meaning to your celebratory countdowns.

Besides countdowns, we had several recommendations for

end of year theme days.

Lacey says we have theme days for the last eight days. We

start with color day, sport, Safari, Hawaiian and tie dye.

And Jamie recommends Camp Skeeter, and she typed that all

in caps, so you know she really loves it. She says they do gummy

worm math, catching insects, scavenger hunts, letters from

camp, flag raising, morning exercises, chairs put away,

desks organized as cabins, cabin competitions, care packages sent

from home. I'm not done, there's more. A campfire in the center

of the classroom, hiking. Bathroom is referred to as the

latrine. Lunchroom is the mess hall. The list goes on and on. I

have students from years ago now, adults who still talk about

how much they loved camp Skeeter.

That sounds like so much fun. I can understand why

Jamie's students remember that. And Emily and I love theme days.

Especially camping. That's the best one.

Theme are just a great way to keep students engaged at

the end of the year.

As we've mentioned before, student engagement

depends on that balance between routine and novelty. At the end

of the year, routine is tipping way into the boredom side of the

balance.

So adding surprise, whether that is through a theme

day or other activity, it helps keep things from getting out of

control.

And a theme day is a great way to add to the surprise

and delight that help regular activities feel like novelties,

which is like, the secret key to doing a theme day, is that it

doesn't actually have to be that, like, exciting, but when

you make it themed, suddenly your normal activities seem

spectacular.

Yeah, anything themed feels fun and novel, and that is

always going to feel like a celebration, especially at the

end of the year.

Yeah. We also like theme days because they take some of

the pressure off the teacher. In episode seven of our podcast, we

said that theme days are a little moment of peace dropped

from the teacher saints above.

And I still stand by that. Theme days are nice

because you can plan and prep them in advance, and the kids

are so engaged that a lot of the management hassles that come at

the end of the year just kind of vanish for a while. In my mind,

theme days are always kind of paired with the feeling of a big

exhale. They just give you a moment to get your feet under

you again.

Plus, if you give the kids enough independent

activities during your theme day, you have time to work on

your independent activities like finishing grading or updating

cumulative files.

That's way less fun than what the kids are doing. But

like Emily mentioned, episode seven of our podcast is all

about theme days. We walk you through the seven steps of

planning a successful theme day and share our tips and tricks.

So definitely revisit that one. We also have two

already-done-for-you theme day resources in our shop.

We call them delight days, D, L, I, T, E, which

stands for, obviously, Differentiated Learning and

Integrated Theme Experience.

We can't help ourselves around an acronym.

Even if no one else appreciates them.

Everyone needs a hobby.

Each theme set for first through third grade includes a

differentiated packet brain breaks, themed writing activity,

task cards, differentiated whole class review activity, a themed

closed reading passage and more. We have a space theme and a

camping theme for only $5 each, and we'll link to those in the

show notes.

We call our camping day Camp Learn A Lot instead of Camp

Skeeter, but you could still apply a lot of Jamie's camp day

suggestions.

Chantal's class has a fort day. She has the kids bring

cardboard boxes and blankets and then uses those on the students

desks to create awesome forts and read with flashlights.

I have never heard that before, but that sounds like so

much fun. I bet that's something the kids will remember forever.

Yeah. Besides camp day and fort day, Melissa recommends

a glow day, but if you don't want to commit to a whole glow

day, you could still have a lot of fun with just a glow party.

Yes, Cindy says get donations from families, block

windows with black paper, let kids tape the glow sticks on

their clothes, turn off the lights and turn on the music

when everyone is ready.

That would definitely be kid heaven. Another fun idea is

board game day. Mindy says she has her kids bring games from

home with the stipulation that there are no electronic games.

The kids must switch to different games after they

finish each one, and the only rule is the child who brings the

game must know how to play it and be able to teach it to

others. If they bring chess, all players must know how to play

already.

Those are the tips of a woman who has survived a game

day or two.

Yep. And one of my kids had a game day recently, and

that was the rule. You can't bring a game once you know the

rules to play it.

Yeah, you got to think ahead to keep these fun

celebrations from tipping into overwhelm. But it is worth it to

see the kids so delighted.

And it is just fun to end the year with all these fun,

happy memories. Another party idea comes from Sam, who

celebrates everybody's birthdays at once with a big party for

everyone.

I haven't done a big birthday party before, but if my

birthday fell on a school day, I usually did a big un-birthday

party for the class, and so we would celebrate my actual

birthday and their un birthdays together. But I can see how it

would be a really fun end of the year activity to do a whole

birthday party with everyone.

Yeah, I did it on my birthday too, because sometimes

So we are about to the end of our celebration ideas,

mine would be right at the beginning of the school year,

that's when my birthday is, but I really like it for an end of

the year celebration. And that really keeps birthday

disruptions to a minimum during the rest of the year, if you

just do it all on one day and go all out.

but I wanted to make sure and share this idea from Cindy. She

says, Something I did earlier this year was a drive in movie.

I had my lunch lady save big, sturdy boxes for me. I gave

students time to work on their cars, then served them popcorn

and a juice box and loaded a few Pixar shorts on a YouTube

playlist. In all, the movie time was about the last 15 minutes of

the day. We had already packed up and then students took their

cars home that day. Just FYI, one bus driver would not allow

the big boxes, so I had to contact families to come pick

them up.

Oh boy. Maybe just recycle the cars when you're

done. If you can find a way to store the boxes like Cindy did,

that would be such a fun activity. I'm sure the kids had

a blast making their cars and then the fun of watching a

movie. I wonder if she had to explain what a drive in movie

is.

Oh, I'm sure she did. I don't think there are too many

of them left.

No, that makes me sad.

Thank you for sharing that, Cindy, and thanks for the

heads up about the bus. There are always so many layers of

things to think through when you are a teacher.

And that's why we are so appreciative of all the teachers

that have shared their ideas. We've got a hard job, and it's

so helpful when someone else points out the potholes you

might not be aware of yet. So a huge thank you to everyone who

shared their tips with us for this week's episode.

Teachers do a great job of looking out for each other,

especially at the end of the year, when we are all just

limping toward that finish line.

As you work on your end of year plans, we hope we've

shared some ways to make it a real celebration.

Remember that a celebration doesn't have to be

big to be meaningful. It can absolutely just be about filling

time before the end of the school year in a way that

doesn't have everyone pulling their hair out.

Yep, those kids have to do something for six hours, and

learning about coordinate geometry is probably not the

solution to that problem two weeks before the last day of

school.

But however you choose to mark the end of the year, we

hope you find a way to do it that is meaningful to you. Look

for tangible ways you can honor the magic of what has happened

the past nine months in your classroom, acknowledge the

upcoming transition and celebrate the bonds of your

classroom community.

We'd love to hear your thoughts on how to add

celebration to the end of the school year. Please come join

the conversation in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.

Now let's talk about this week's Teacher Approved tip. Each week

we leave you with a small, actionable tip that you can

apply in your classroom today. This week's teacher approved tip

is make a display reflecting on this year and anticipating the

year to come.

So one way that I celebrated the end of the year

as a second grade teacher was having the kids reflect on what

we had done as a class. I started with a discussion about

everything we had done during the year, and I listed the kids

memories on the board. I kept going until we had a pretty long

list, and then I drew names and let each student pick a memory.

I didn't want anyone to get stuck with a lame memory, like

the day the cafeteria ran out of tacos or something like that. So

I made sure that our list of memories was longer than we

actually needed, and that meant coming up with like 30 or so

memories, which took some thinking, but we got there.

Then once the kids had their assigned memory, their job was

to illustrate it and then maybe write a sentence about it. At

the very least, they needed to title it so I knew what the

picture was. Sometimes, you know how kids drawings are, a little

abstract. And then I arranged them in chronological order and

hung them in the hall as a timeline. Because I knew where I

was going to display this, I measured the wall ahead of time

and then cut down paper so that they would fit in a row on that

wall, and then I added the title, Looking Back at Second

Grade.

But then I left it up all summer, and before school

started in the fall, I just changed out the title to Looking

Ahead to Second Grade. This meant that I had something

outside my room for back to school all ready to go, and it

gave my new batch of second graders an idea of what they

could look forward to. And that was fine, and it was so handy to

have it done already. But the reason I really loved this was

that it meant so much to my former students to see that they

still had a place in the story of my class. They would often

stop by and talk about what memories were jogged by seeing

our pictures.

Which is probably especially important at the

beginning of the school year, when they're in a new class that

they don't feel as comfortable yet, to walk down the hall and

see those happy memories is just a happiness boost for everyone.

If you want to do something like this, you don't have to display

it in the hallway, if that doesn't work for you, and you

don't have to put it in a chronological row. The idea is

that it's just nice to do something now that will benefit

you when life is crazy at back to school time.

I found that the key to making this successful, as I

learned the hard way, was to consider what has to happen in

your class during the summer. Because I was taping papers on a

brick, they just were no match for the humidity of the swamp

cooler and the industrial fans that were blowing on the newly

cleaned carpets. If the point of doing this is to reduce your

workload, you don't want to have to keep taping things up. So

learn from my mistakes and find a way to make it sturdy enough

to survive three months.

I wonder if you could put out a big piece of butcher paper

and tape everything to the butcher paper, and then you

could take it down easily and put it back up easily.

Oh, handy dandy. You could probably even glue it on

the butcher paper and then be even more solid.

Yeah. Or you could cover it with butcher paper, like

somebody had suggested to us recently about covering up your

bulletin boards at the end of the year. For next year, you

cover them with butcher paper. But I still think the things

inside the butcher paper might fall with the humidity. So I

think doing it on butcher paper, you take it down, roll it up,

and then put it back up.

Or someplace where you could use push pins. We are

going to problem solve this for y'all.

Yes, I do think it's such a fun idea, though, and if you

do this, we would love to hear about it.

Yeah, or send pictures. Please send pictures.

Yes.

To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we're giving

extra credit to this week. Emily, what are you giving extra

I'm giving extra credit to the book Yours Truly by Abby

credit to?

Jimenez. I gave extra credit last year to another one of her

books, Part of Your World, and this is actually the second book

in that series, but that just means there are some of the same

characters in both books. They're definitely standalone

stories that you can read in any order. In Yours Truly, you get a

little bit of everything. There's enemies to lovers, fake

dating, epistolary romance, though, I don't know if I'd go

as far as calling it that, when they only exchange letters for

like, a small portion of the book. But I keep hearing this

book described as that, so I threw that in too.

Somehow it all comes together well. I don't know how, but she

nailed it. I listened to the audiobook, which was fun because

there are dual narrators, which I love, and the male narrator is

my favorite male audiobook narrator ever, Zach Weber. If

you like Emily Henry, I think you'll enjoy this book. It's not

a flawless book. There are some things about it I would change,

but overall, excellent read that I just zipped through. And I

know everybody loves Emily Henry right now, and I do too, but I

think Abby Jimenez might be my most favorite author in the

adult romance genre right now.

Well, I will have to check that out. I'm way behind.

It's been on my to be read for a long time. So

Come on.

Gotta catch up.

What is your extra credit going to?

I'm giving extra credit to a book too. It is Jane and

Edward by Melody Edwards. Not confusing at all to have those

double Edwards there, but we'll figure it out. So Jane Eyre is

my favorite book, and I'm such a sucker for any Jane adaptation.

And this happens to be a modern retelling, where Jane is a legal

secretary and Edward is a high powered attorney, of course, but

Melody, I think she did a really good job translating the story

into a more modern setting without just a cookie cutter

copy and paste of events. She's faithful to the original while

still adding really clever updates. But even if you have

never read Jane Eyre, I think you would still enjoy the story

as a modern romance, if that's your jam. If it's not, I can't

help you. The author also did a really great job at updating the

more problematic parts of that storyline.

What? In Jane Eyre?

I know! I really enjoyed it and, but I think I would

maybe have liked it even more if the author had kept the story in

the first person, the way that Jane Eyre is written. I think it

would have really boosted the emotional impact of the story,

but that's just a minor quibble in an otherwise very

entertaining read.

Now the real question is, while you were reading, did you

picture Edward as Michael Fassbender?

Yes, I did.

Okay, okay, then I will definitely read this book and

picture that as well.

I even looked up pictures of him to make sure I had it

right.

That's dedication.

That is it for today's episode. Try out some of these

teacher approved ideas for celebrating the end of the

school year with your class, and remember our teacher approved

tip to make a visual display of your year together with your

students.

Do you know a teacher friend who may enjoy this

episode? Sharing with a friend is the number one way you can

help us reach new listeners, and we appreciate it so much.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm

Heidi.

And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow

or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an

episode.

You can connect with us and other teachers in the

Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.

Bye for now.

Bye.