Creative ways to end the school year

The end of the school year marks a unique opportunity for educators to create lasting memories with students. If you aren't able to try any of these activities out this year, keep them in mind as beginning of the school year rolls around or use them at the close of next year.

STEAM challenges

• Students choose a book, either a new one or a past read that they enjoyed.

          They must create an object that goes with the book. Then they share the story and what they chose to create with their classmates. These can go on display or be taken home, depending on the materials used with the books. 

Pictured here are my students using LEGO blocks:

• Use a picture book to challenge students to construct an object from the story, for example, we read the new version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen:

Students were challenged to build a troll bridge out of LEGO blocks. I gave them a piece of blue paper as the water and the only stipulation I made was that it had to be elevated, not touching the water.  As the students worked they found that they wanted to continue the challenge with more requirements, like the ones that are the sturdiest, tallest, etc. 

The best part was listening to them share their strategies for building and helping each other when they got stuck. It also inspired some to want to perform a reader's theater of the story! 

• Put up a big Spot the Difference to complete as a class. Then challenge students to make their own and trade with one another. They can use old magazines to cut out pictures and words or use Google Slides or another digital format to make their pictures. 

The one shown in this video is from the publisher's website for the book, Someone Builds the Dream by Lisa Wheeler and Loren Long. 

• Challenge students to create a BookFace photo. They will need access to a camera and book covers You can do this with book covers that are already separated from books or from the books themselves. In small groups, 3 people is usually good, students select a book cover that they can finish with their own bodies, faces, or other objects. Then students pose in a way that aligns with the book's cover art and another student takes the picture. Pictures can be edited and cropped so that only the BookFace remains.  Here are some of our favorites from this past year:

Blast From the Past

This is a fun way to look back on the school year and reflect on those moments of growth, humor, and classmates who have come and gone.  

• Show photos and ask students to recall those lessons. I also record or have them write down what they are interested in at the start of the school year.  At the end, I share with them what they said and ask if anything has changed since then.  It is so neat to hear how their interests and lives change.

• Roll videos produced by students, for example, stop motion films, book trailers, etc.  After looking at some, students asked to make more next year and for specific events, like, Talk Like a Pirate Day.  We even made several of our own as a class on our last library day!

• Have students rank their top reads of the year. Our library management system allows them to see their circulation history, so students were able to rank their favorite books they checked out. 

Looking ahead

• Share with students special days, holidays, or hide them in plastic eggs around the room. (I got the list from LM_NET and had to cut some out due to the age of my students.) Students select one to learn more about and then share with their classmates what they learned. You can have them write it on a sticky note, make a poster, or a digital copy.

This poster displayed here is from my Capstone Publisher representative:

• Survey students about their opinions about the library program or your classroom.  I've had students use devices to fill out Google Forms and I've had them write their ideas on paper posted around the room.  This helps to shape the next year and gives students a voice:

Play unplugged games

• Peep Knock-out: you take turns with a partner trying to knock a Peep off of the side of a table using only a plastic egg that you roll.  I heard about this game from a librarian colleague of mine and was waiting to play it on a special occasion. My 1st graders played the game and then we came together to critique it and adjust the rules for playing it again in the future. 

• "Water Balloon Battle" or "________ Battle": You take turns launching a balloon on paper towards your opponents figures, also drawn on paper.  Your eyes are closed when launching and if you hit the figure then you succeed.  I first saw this on a fellow librarian's Twitter account and had my students play it, they loved it!  They also had fantastic ideas for adjustments.  
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  Follow the directions below for the rules to the tabletop game: 

Of course there are so many fun ways to end the school year or engage with learners to build community, please leave your favorite activities in the comments or if you have specific questions, send them my way.

Fun games to play with K-12 students: in-person or virtually

 Categories: roll the dice or draw a card with a color and the student picks a square from that row and teams can come up with examples, pairs of students, or individuals or even the whole class can write or draw them.

The Name 5 came in my Pinterest feed and I saved it to use with remote learners, but my in-person learners loved to play it, too! Here is the original source for this sheet.

Another alternative way to play is to pick a category that goes with a book you will be reading & use the Name 5 as a concept formation tool.

Rock, Paper, Scissors tournament: did you know that the game has been around longer than the pyramids?  That's a fun-fact shared by author Drew Daywalt in his read-aloud video of The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors. 

 It is easy to do a class tournament which is in-person.  Pair students up, they play best out of 3 rounds and the winner gets paired up with another until there is one champion.  There are variations on this, like, the loser of the rounds sits down or they follow their opponent who beat them and cheer them on. This is the slide I used with my second graders and a video of our first round of playing. The second round went much better!

In a virtual environment there are also variations.  You can send partners into breakout rooms and then narrow it down from there.  Or you can pair opponents up and all stay in the same room.  For example, when I did this with 2nd graders I called the pairs out and made sure that they knew whose square to be focused on during the match.  The winner of the round keeps their camera on.  At the end of the round I re-paired them up for the next round, etc.  For the last round we all turned our cameras on and cheered them on.  

As a challenge you can ask students to come up with other ideas rather than rock, paper, scissors.  You can even show them the clip from The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon shares his version:

High Five tournament: Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri's picture book, High Five is especially fun to read before this activity.  

The book trailer previews some variations on the style of high fiving:

After watching you can ask students which ones they liked the most, which ones were the hardest, etc.  You can even have them recreate them and then choose one action to add on top of it.  Students can work on these alone or individually and share them on a Flipgrid and have students vote for their favorites. You can also have a tournament in your class with students competing and some acting as judges, like in the book.

Here are our kindergarteners following the directions for a partner high five challenge:

This was the list that we practiced a few moves at a time.  With older groups you can go through the motions and see who can perform them without looking at the list of directions:

Mannequin Challenge: Back in 2016 there was a viral video challenge that asked people to hold a pose while the camera spans the room.  You can do this with students by choosing a prompt, asking them to hold a pose that they interpret as a good response and either video tape them OR take photos.  Here is a clip of first graders holding a power pose:

We did this for Children's Book Week 2021 because the slogan was Reading is a Superpower. We replicated the girl in the center of the poster designed by illustrator Bryan Collier: 

Students shared their superpower poses and we copied classmates. I turned their photos into a collage to share with families.

More ideas can be found on this site, Teaching With a Mountain View, for upper elementary and up.

Beautiful Oops game:

Read aloud (or show a video read aloud of the book) Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg & challenge your students to take one of the mistakes in the and show an example of it:

• A spill
• Bent paper
• A drip of paint
• A scrap of paper
• A smudge & smear
• A stain
• Holes
• A wad 

After they have made an example of a mistake they can put them all out on a table.  Pull students' names, one-by-one, and have them choose one of the mistakes to turn into something else, like in the book.

This is fun because it builds community, students love thinking about their connections to one another and this is one way to create that bond.  It's also enjoyable because they are all based on mistakes.  They won't be perfect and that is the whole point.  Students can be creative and if they are stuck they can use the book as a mentor text.

Finally, you can display the art and do a gallery walk with others in the school & see if they can spot the "mistake" that inspired the art!

You can even award a "Best in Show" and give them the follow-up book to Beautiful Oops!: My Book of Beautiful Oops! an interactive journal for young artists!

The book's website has more ideas on how to use the book and join the world-wide community sharing their Beautiful Oops on social media: