It’s the end of the school year and you want to make the parting part a positive experience. Of course, you’ve been with your students for a year working hard together. How do you make the last day of school special or at least a day for your class to remember by?
By the way…
>>>You might need gifts for children with autism? We found and reviewed 22 great ideas.
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How Do You Make the Last Day of School Special for Your Class?
The best strategy that many teachers like to use before closing the school year is to create impactful activities that allow students to feel how remarkable a class they have become.
Take a look at these meaningful but fun last-day-of-school activities for your class.
Play Review Games
Games are a meaningful way to get students to work together. Everybody smells summer so you can engage them to play.
Word Games. Let them pick words to use in a sentence. You will be happy to hear how they have learned different words they now use in casual conversations.
Truth or Dare: In this review game, you will discover the feelings, experiences, and learnings of students playing.
To choose Truth is to answer any life questions truthfully. For example, “Which math subject did you like the most??” or “Have you ever been tempted to skip classes?
Dare means the player opts to do a challenge such as “Say the 7 times multiplication table,” or“Introduce yourself in 1 minute.”
Family Feud: Let students form two teams. One person from each team must compete to answer a review question. The first team who gets it right gets a point.
The Hot Seat: Here, one student sits in front of the class. Write a vocabulary word on a board or paper and put it behind their seat. The rest of the class raises their hands so the hot seat student can call on three volunteers for clues to guess the word. If they don’t get the word correct, choose another student to take the hot seat.
There are other review games to try such as Ping-Pong, Bingo, Beach Ball, Jeopardy, Headbands, Pass the Chicken, Spin the Wheel, etc.
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The Meaningful Drink
This one is so heartwarming. Prepare bottles of drink with a message written on a small piece of paper rolled and taped at the bottom of the bottle. Messages could be:
“What was your favorite subject and why?”
“Share a funny experience you have from this school year.”
“What is your favorite memory of this class?”
Trust me, the sharing of answers coming from the students’ hearts will create a strong environment of fellowship that’s worth cherishing.
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Kindness and Compliments
One week before the last day of school, provide a sheet of paper for each student with their name on it. Tape the sheets on the wall and encourage everyone to write genuine compliments, followed by their signature.
On the big day, give the paper to corresponding students and let each of them read the comments for everybody to hear. The kindest words will be heard all throughout the sharing as each student thank and send wishes back to those who gave them compliments. Such experience will grace their personal memories.
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Find a Gift
This last day of school activity can mean a little investment, but if you have a collection of little items then there’s no need to spend. Do you have stationeries, pocketbooks, bookmarkers, postcards, and anything else that can form a remembrance?
List all the items you have and hide them in different spots – they can be in or out of the classroom. To do it, provide the students with a list of hidden items that they must find. Set a time limit to keep the game exciting.
Be clever in choosing hiding spots. Include inside books, top of the door, in between curtain folds, leaves, stones, etc. There are students who will always cherish what they receive no matter how small.
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Do your own Oscars event
Who would not get excited with a red carpet rolled out the floor? Plan a culminating event and surprise your class with prizes and honors. Everybody will be excited about the year’s best presentations, top teamwork, cleanest row, most active students, or dancer of the year.
Include the most epic classroom moments, the funniest group, and anything else you can think is relevant. Of course, don’t forget Oscar-style acceptance speeches – they will be excited. If they can dress up for the day- the more fun it’s going to be.
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Map your Year
Let the students form groups of three or four and tell them to create a large map of what they’ve learned. Guide them to recall important events, unique lessons, activities, knowledge, and skills learned during the year.
Since students work with peers, it lets them connect with each other while identifying key learning points. Their visualizing and asking questions will bring them together as they summarize goals for the next year.
Students will feel togetherness and the bond is enough for them to remember each other. On your part, there is a sense of joy watching them share how they have grown up in your class.
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The Farewell Walk (For graduating class)
Not only does Miss Universe do farewell walks, but a graduating class also deserves that too!
Make a “finale” by taking your class for a walk around the campus. Bring them to places you have spent time together like the gym, laboratory, speech lab, library, canteen, and of course, the faculty room.
Here, the students will find the walk so memorable as it reminisces all the days the class went through – the joys, laughter, pains, pressures, and excitement they felt. Now that they’re leaving the campus – would leave an extremely memorable last day of school. Hey, don’t cry!
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In Essense
The power of camaraderie on the last day of school helps both students and teachers celebrate each other and all the efforts of the class throughout the year. Feel free to add any approach so that it works best for you and your students on this special day of the school year.
Do you have any unique ideas to add? How nice if you could share them in the comments.
