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.

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

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.

Article by Gary Hopkins
Education World®
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