End of the Year Activity Ideas

Kirsten 0:09

This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm curious to know the southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things, social studies, I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.

Hello, there and welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher Podcast. Today, I wanted to share something related to something that might be happening coming up for you in the next month, and that is the end of the school year, this might be a few weeks away maybe more than a few weeks, five weeks. Either way, you are nearing the end of the finish line for the school year. And I thought it would be a great idea to share with you some engaging end of year activity ideas that you can utilize in your upper elementary classroom, the end of the year, hoopla and fanfare can definitely bring a lot of different feelings. For one thing, you're at the end of the tunnel ready for a much deserved summer break to reset and rest. And on the other hand, you might get a little sentimental with your students knowing these are the last moments you will ever have with the particular group of students that you have, whether that's good or bad for you, deep down every year at the very, very last day of school, I did get a little bit sentimental and like just looking at them all in the room, it would not be the same because they're going to be either, you know, moving on to different classes, or just they may not have the same teacher. So it's really not going to be the same as it was just because of the nature of things. That's how things happen. Even if you happen to change grades and teach them again, you may not have the same combination of students or deal with particular events as you did. And it can also be a little bit difficult keeping them engaged when they're ready for days in the sun at the pool, and just being out of school out of the classroom. So I wanted to share with you five end of year activity ideas that you can easily implement with your students in grades three through five, that are not only a great way to reflect on the year but also hit on some important reading comprehension or vocabulary skills that you might have taught during the school year, whether that's in your social studies class, or in another class, maybe you teach ELA or another teacher teaches ELA this is something that kind of coincides is like a cross curricular type of thing. And all of these activities pair really well with the book a letter from your teacher on the last day of school by Shannon Olsen. These also work great for the last week or last day of school. If you haven't purchased this book, it's a really great read. I'm going to make sure to link this in the show notes so that you can purchase this particular book. And there is actually a new book that she came out with, I'll have to also make sure to link that but she's got a series of really great classroom community building books, and they're in the form of poetry. I think it's a really great way to tie in social studies just because of the nature of you know, having a classroom community and connecting with other people. And also, it's a great tie in to ELA skills. So let's talk about those five interview activity ideas.

Number one, go on his poetry scavenger hunt. In this activity, you can select a short variety of poems. Have students read and annotate the poem and find examples of poetry elements from the poem. Bonus points if you can find some fun poems that relate to the social studies concepts that you've taught during the school year, and thinking even maybe something like Paul Revere is right. That's a really popular poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. And there's just a whole bunch of other poetry that you can find that correlate to the specific topics you might have taught during the school year. You can set it up to where students work in pairs or in groups on just one poem, or you can make it so that students have five to 10 minutes, and they're rotating between four to five poems around the room. You can make it fun. There are also a couple of kid friendly poems that are on the Poetry Foundation website and the de LTK website as well. I'll make sure those are linked there also in the blog post I have of this version of the podcast episode. So you'll see that in there. But I mean, there's so many different social studies, topics, poems that you can use, it can be like a holiday theme. The de LTK has one for Father's Day, has one for Mother's Day, they've got summer poems. So there's a definite way you can tie in, you know, going on a poetry scavenger hunt and utilizing it with some type of concept related to social studies.

The second that I have for you is to compare texts, this activity would require both a letter from your teacher on the first day of school, in addition to the last date book. So if you happen to have a letter from your teacher on the first day of school, then you can utilize that and then you can also have the last day of school version. And as a whole group, you're reading each book and have students work in pairs or in groups, to compare different elements of each of the books, see what's similar and see what's different. Also encourage students to look at not only the story elements, but also the tone, mood and illustrations of each texts. So not necessarily going super in depth with the actual content. It's just kind of like taking a look at the different story elements, and how they're similar between the first and last day of school and how they are different.

The third tip, or third strategy I have for you is to write out a year in review poem, this is a really cool one. I did this with my fifth grade students kind of towards the beginning of the year. And so I created a version that's more of a interview version, I think it's a really great reflection piece. But what would happen is students are constructing a poem on various things they liked or disliked about the school year, you can have students get creative. And you can have students write what ever type of poem they want. It can be a narrative, poem, lyrical poem, humorous, poem, free verse poem, it can rhyme, it doesn't have to rhyme. You can also host a poetry slam after they finished, where students are sharing their end of year poems. So a lot of these styles, there's kind of like a structure to it line one would be their first name, line two would be their current grade level. And the line three would be maybe a friend of and then you list 123, friends in your class, and so on, and so forth. There's different type of prompts for that to create their poem. So it's not like they're just kind of reading it on the fly, but they can, but it's kind of more structured so that it is some type of format, it's just the way however, they want to create that poem. You know, if they want it to rhyme or not, they can always do that. Just give them that creativity to do that.

The fourth idea that I have for you, that would be really fun and a little maybe get a little choked up, is to have students write a letter to you, this could queue some waterworks. But for a special end to the year have students write a letter to you and take the time to respond back to each and every student on a separate sheet of paper. Not only will you be able to keep the sweet notes from your students, but you can also give them a memory that they will be able to cherish as well when you're writing a letter back to them.

And the final activity idea I have for you is to reflect on the text, and specifically a letter from your teacher on the last day of school, have students write a reflection of the book after reading the text to the class, students can reflect individually and share their reflections as a group. Or they can share it with the whole class. So thinking about some of the questions like listing three activities or hobbies you like to do, listing three activities or hobbies that your teacher likes to do. And also kind of related back to the reflection of the year what subjects do you enjoy learning about from your teacher.

So those are just different examples of how you can reflect on the text related to the book, a letter from your teacher on the last day of school, at school comes to a close reflect on the year with your students. All of these activities are the perfect way to kind of bring the academic school year full circle and wrap things up nicely. This can be a great way for your students to have an engaging learning experience while also doing some culminating activities at the end of the year. Now if you are looking for some type of Have Reading project or activity set of a variety of things you can pick from that works great. Consider giving your students the letter from your teacher at the end of the year book convenient, so it pairs perfectly with the actual book, and it's a nice little book companion to go along with it. Summer break can be just around the corner. But that does not mean classic classroom activities are forgotten. So grab some school supplies, get creative and enjoy the memories made over this past year.

Thanks for listening to this episode. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week and I'll talk to you again next week. Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode. For more teacher tips and strategies

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