End of the Year Activities for Upper Elementary, Middle School, and High School Students
As the school year draws to a close, ensure a seamless finish with these comprehensive resources. From planning celebratory events to managing administrative tasks, this set of resources will equip educators with practical strategies for wrapping up the academic year successfully. Streamline your end-of-year process and make the transition from school to summer smooth for both educators and students.
How can I end the school year with fun activities yet keep my students learning? Explore this practical guide, offering insights into planning lessons, keeping students engaged, for ensuring a successful and seamless end to the academic year.
END OF THE SCHOOL YEAR
When I was a student, I remember counting down the days until summer break! The end of the year couldn’t come fast enough. For some odd reason, I thought students were the only ones counting down the days. I guess I never really thought through it all, but I just assumed teachers were in this other dimension of always teaching and never having a summer break because they were so excited to see us again when our summer was over. Oh how naive I was. Now that I’m a teacher, summer break might be even more welcoming than when I was a student.
As a teacher, the end of the school year can be extremely exciting with summer approaching and also chaotic due to the uncontrollable enthusiasm. As the days of the school begin to decrease, it seems like the craziness of the students begins to increase. Students and teachers alike are so excited to have a well deserved break after all their hard work!
To help your final days of planning and sanity, I've put together a few end of the year activities that will be fun for students yet bring engaging sanity for teachers. All of these lesson activities are perfect for any age group and any subject matter. Explore these exciting resources below and best wishes on your final few weeks!
Magazine Project: Summarize The Main Ideas for Any Subject
One of my all-time-favorite, end of the year activities is this magazine project! What makes this lesson exciting is that it’s very user-friendly, and the final project looks so professional that students are extremely proud of their finished product! The format itself naturally raises the expectations for student accomplishment. In a Google Drive format, students are assigned the project file with various top-notch templates for their cover and a variety of interior page designs to summarize the content being studied.
Whether working in partners or completing on their own, this drag and drop format allows for students of all ability levels to create a stunning final magazine or newspaper! If you have students that love graphic design, and they want to alter the templates in any way, this file is completely editable to add, edit, alter, or modify. In addition to students enjoying this assignment, teachers are absolutely in love with it as well. There is no prep whatsoever! Instruct your students on the content you want them to cover, then assign the Google document through the provided link or post in Google Classroom and watch your students keep busy while staying quiet all the way to the bell!
For Use: Historical Summaries | Biographies | Book Reports | Research Projects | Economics Briefings | Science Articles | Creative Writing | ELA | Math | History | Agriculture | Business | Psychology | So much more…
“This was seriously the best. We did research on the Titanic and students created magazines and articles based on the Titanic. Students shared their final projects at conferences and parents LOVED them!”
TikTok Video Project: Summarize Any Subject in Video Format
Students love TikTok so why not use it to help them love learning as well! With this fun TikTok activity, students will receive a user-friendly template to guide them along the process of making a quality video while meeting the various educational requirements as assigned by the teacher. The templates that come with the product are also completely editable so you have the freedom to alter any aspects that may not suit your content or classroom vibe. Along with creating the video, students will complete the guided templates in written format. This can be printed off from a PDF or you can have students complete the guided assignment by typing on it in Google Drive or through Google Classroom.
Perfect for an end of the year activity, students will work in partners or groups to summarize any content you assign all while following a structured set of guidelines to ensure a quality video project. This project is extremely engaging that students won’t even realize they are actually learning at school!
If TikTok is not your app of choice, this product can still be used to help guide students in making video summaries while using any app. You do not necessarily need to use TikTok in order to enjoy this product. Just a simple camera app on the phone is certainly doable if you prefer! Once complete, enjoy watching all of the videos from the class as students will get to teach the others through their creative instruction.
Brain Teasers: Bell Ringers, Logic Puzzles and Riddles to Stimulate Critical Thinking
If you want to get students focused, zoned in, and get their minds thinking, these brain teaser riddles are the ticket! From riddles and logic puzzles to mind benders and mathematical teasers, students look forward to solving the next puzzle or cracking the code!
Brain teasers are are so flexible to use. You can incorporate them as a bellringer at the beginning of class, use them as a center rotation activity, quickly pull a few up in that final five minutes, or just use it as a fun day when you need it. Many teachers like to make these an ongoing competition by projecting the Google Slideshow for the class to view and have groups race to complete a few brain teasers when time allows.
Each set of brain teasers also comes in a printable PDF version as well. Oftentimes teachers like to give the worksheets to students after they finish a test or make it part of a center rotation. Whatever the format, you and your students will love these Brain Teasers! Your students will impress you as these teasers can stump the teachers as well!
Mister Harms’ Brain Teasers come as a set of 30 questions each in 4 separate volumes. If you get the entire bundle of all 4 volumes, that’s 120 questions to solve which is more than a semester of bell ringers! Explore the various volumes and bundles below.
“Jenna wrote all the numbers from 300 to 400 on a piece of paper. How many times did she write the digit 3?”
Storyboard Comic Strip Templates: Summarize Any Content
Summarizing the main idea can be very tough for students to execute and comprehend. Requiring students to create a visual allows for more senses to be included creating improved comprehension for the information being studied. Students absolutely love this creative storyboard activity that allows them to highlight the main ideas of any reading or subject being studied. Teachers appreciate the engaging format that keeps students focused and allowing for creative skills to be drawn out in the variety of learning styles.
This lesson is very simple yet effective. Students receive a graphic organizer template that provides them a guided format to summarize any text or content being studied. With numbers and titles for each scene, along with a short summary and visual, this universal format makes it easy for students to complete and clear for teachers to grade as well.
Once students have completed their storyboards, post the student posters around the room and enjoy reflecting on the content being studied. The flexibility of this product is very helpful as it can be downloaded and printed on paper, or students can complete digitally when assigned through Google Drive or Google Classroom. You’ll be amazed at the artistic and storytelling talent that many of your students have lying deep within.
Ending The School Year
Hopefully a few of these lessons and activities can spark some inspiration and help you survive the final days of the school year! The energy is always exciting in those final few weeks, so capitalizing on this energy with some creative and fun activities is always helpful!
I know the end of the year can be tough at times, but these lessons have been battle tested and teacher approved by myself and so many other teachers who have enjoyed them. What end of the year lessons have worked for you? Contact me and introduce yourself. I’d love to hear from you and get some new ideas for my classroom as well!
Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you can incorporate a few of these resource ideas! For more ideas throughout the year, explore the Mister Harms Store and be sure to join my classroom for future email updates. Enjoy the final weeks of school, and even more importantly, enjoy your summer break to recharge and become a better you! You deserve it!