End of the Year Activity
Can you feel it? That excitement in the air. The buzzing that seems to be emanating from your students. The rising level of insanity. Yes, my friends, the end of the school year is upon us and you need an end of the year activity or two that will help keep a lid on the craziness. How about six ideas that you can use right away in the regular class or your Music class? I've got you!
1. Goodbye Letters
A perfect end of the year activity is to have your students write you a goodbye letter. I had mine write a "Hello Letter" on the first day of school so I handed those back so they could get a chuckle out of what they were like 10 months ago. This is the prompt I use:
2. Survival Guides
Survival Guides are a really good end of year reflection activity for students. I used these ones from Hello Fifth. I would have liked my students to put a little more artistic effort into them but considering they had just finished a week of standardized testing I couldn't complain too much. The best part is that in September I will have these same kids for Grade 8 and am planning on handing them back on the first day...if I can find them all!
3. SKUNK/MUSIC
This game is one of my absolute fave end of year games to play with both my homeroom class and Music classes. To make it Music related I just changed the letters in SKUNK to M-U-S-I-C. I use the dice on my Smart Board but you can also just roll a pair of real dice or use these virtual dice. They aren't very big but that site doesn't have a bunch of weird ads so I feel like that's worth the trade-off. You can also use this game in a Music Center and have the students use Rhythm Dice instead of regular ones.
Click here for the game instructions and here for the MUSIC game board freebie. You will need Google Slides to open it. Select "Make a Copy" when prompted.
4. Mystery Songs
If you want to keep things musical and curriculum related with your end of the year activities, I would recommend using mystery songs. They are super fun and engaging. Here is a link for boomwhacker mystery songs to use in a general music class and here is one that is geared towards beginning band students.
5. Classroom Scavenger Hunt
I usually use classroom scavenger hunts in the beginning of the year but I have adapted this one to use as an end of the year activity. It's totally editable so you can include ANYTHING you want and there is a Google Slides option that lets your students take pictures on their devices and insert them onto the Scavenger Hunt slide.
Check out my video (that I'm super proud of myself for making) to see how easy it is to do digitally. You can have students work in groups if you don't have 1:1 devices or just print off the Scavenger Hunt. Your kids will have fun either way.
6. Test
When all else fails and you need some quiet give them a test, or a quiz, or do some independent reading. "Of course this counts towards your mark, students!" This is an easy Music test to do and if you have access to computers or other devices it comes with a Google Slides version where students can drag and drop their answers. I also find that students are a lot quieter when they are using technology and at the end of the year you gotta do what you need to do in order to survive.
In the middle of the end of the year insanity try to take a minute to think about how far you have come and what you and your students have accomplished. Teaching is a job where you never actually finish a task. There is ALWAYS more learning and teaching that you can do. So take a minute. Breathe deeply. And then give yourself a high-five because you made it!
Are you looking for some back to school activities? Check out this blog post with 5 ideas you can use right now!.
1. Goodbye Letters
A perfect end of the year activity is to have your students write you a goodbye letter. I had mine write a "Hello Letter" on the first day of school so I handed those back so they could get a chuckle out of what they were like 10 months ago. This is the prompt I use:
Write a letter to me about your impressions of your Grade 6 year. You may include things that you loved learning about and activities you enjoyed. Also, give me some suggestions about things that you think I should START doing, STOP doing, or CONTINUE doing with my next class.
It's so easy to adapt the wording to fit with any class and I love seeing how much my students have grown over the past year. The funny thing is that they remember so much more than I would and they value things that took little to no effort for me to do.
These were some of my fave comments (I love their honesty and candidness):
- I had a wonderful year being taught by you. I loved doing math and especially probability since we used percentages, fractions, and decimals.
- You should continue using the rainstick to tell your students to be quiet because the sound it makes is beautiful.
- Grade six was not as bad as I thought it would be.
- I can't believe today is your last day! Why did you have to get pregnant?
- My thought on this year was that it was average. That's not rude because average is hard to achieve in a classroom. There were fun and boring times. Most years were boring but this is easily one of my best years.
There were a lot of helpful comments, too, but those were my favourite.
Survival Guides are a really good end of year reflection activity for students. I used these ones from Hello Fifth. I would have liked my students to put a little more artistic effort into them but considering they had just finished a week of standardized testing I couldn't complain too much. The best part is that in September I will have these same kids for Grade 8 and am planning on handing them back on the first day...if I can find them all!
3. SKUNK/MUSIC
This game is one of my absolute fave end of year games to play with both my homeroom class and Music classes. To make it Music related I just changed the letters in SKUNK to M-U-S-I-C. I use the dice on my Smart Board but you can also just roll a pair of real dice or use these virtual dice. They aren't very big but that site doesn't have a bunch of weird ads so I feel like that's worth the trade-off. You can also use this game in a Music Center and have the students use Rhythm Dice instead of regular ones.
Click here for the game instructions and here for the MUSIC game board freebie. You will need Google Slides to open it. Select "Make a Copy" when prompted.
4. Mystery Songs
If you want to keep things musical and curriculum related with your end of the year activities, I would recommend using mystery songs. They are super fun and engaging. Here is a link for boomwhacker mystery songs to use in a general music class and here is one that is geared towards beginning band students.
5. Classroom Scavenger Hunt
I usually use classroom scavenger hunts in the beginning of the year but I have adapted this one to use as an end of the year activity. It's totally editable so you can include ANYTHING you want and there is a Google Slides option that lets your students take pictures on their devices and insert them onto the Scavenger Hunt slide.
Check out my video (that I'm super proud of myself for making) to see how easy it is to do digitally. You can have students work in groups if you don't have 1:1 devices or just print off the Scavenger Hunt. Your kids will have fun either way.
6. Test
When all else fails and you need some quiet give them a test, or a quiz, or do some independent reading. "Of course this counts towards your mark, students!" This is an easy Music test to do and if you have access to computers or other devices it comes with a Google Slides version where students can drag and drop their answers. I also find that students are a lot quieter when they are using technology and at the end of the year you gotta do what you need to do in order to survive.
In the middle of the end of the year insanity try to take a minute to think about how far you have come and what you and your students have accomplished. Teaching is a job where you never actually finish a task. There is ALWAYS more learning and teaching that you can do. So take a minute. Breathe deeply. And then give yourself a high-five because you made it!
Are you looking for some back to school activities? Check out this blog post with 5 ideas you can use right now!.
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