End of the Year Activities

The end of the year is a lot like the month of December for teachers. Identical to the last lap in Mario cart when the music get's louder and faster. That means everything is JAM PACKED and super exciting. It also means that teacher's leave at the end of each day just utterly wiped out. Am I right?

The thing that made this easier for me was building in activities that I can count on/plan ahead for. Some of these things include a themed end of the year project, pre-planned EOY gifts, or an ABC themed writing journal to celebrate each day. These pre determined activities and celebrations take the guess work out of what to do.

One of my favorites is our ABC countdown journal. I know, I know... there's a lot of "controversy" surrounding the count downs lately. This isn't a "OMG WE ONLY HAVE 3 DAYS LEFT YAY!" in your face thing. Nor is it a "I'm one of the few stable environments you have and we're going to remind you that I'm taking that away every single day!". It's just a theme. And it's not even an actual count down. No balloon popping, no days left posted, or count down chains. (Unless you want to then do you this is a do what makes everyone happy zone!)

This ABC count down journal is just a themed journal. A built in activity for each day starting at 26 days PLUS writing. I'm not going to lie. I love this because at the end of the year my students become antsier, and they become WAY faster at doing things compared to how they behaved in Fall so this takes up time. This faster behavior is a good thing, but it can also be a bad thing if you don't have those activities ready. Not having activities planned or built in leads to..... dun dun dunnnn.... UNWANTED BEHAVIORS. Honestly it starts around the last 30 days anyway.

Here's what WE do. I prep our journals and hand pick out the activities that we'll do for the rest of the year (there's so many options!). Some years this means I do mostly everything that doesn't require extra money to purchase materials, some years this means that we aren't going to do "unseat" because that particular class won't be able to handle sitting wherever they want (like under tables, in a scoop rocker etc.) It's all by preference. After I pick them all out then we have a journal set for the rest of the school year. We will do an activity each day then write about it. It takes a chunk of time, it's glorious. For example- B is for BUBBLES! We get to go outside for 10 minutes and blow bubbles, maybe see who can blow the biggest bubble, use specific vocabulary with our friends while doing this activity ( big, little, tiny, pop, explode, burst, huge etc.) then we will go inside and write all about it putting those tier 2 vocabulary words to use. PERFECT! And even better, we have a built in routine until the last day of school.

A couple of other things I like to have set are some kind of end of the year celebration with a gift and a hat. In my class our hats take a couple of days... We need to color, we need to cut, we need to measure and then assemble. I used to try to make all of our hats in one day and I wanted to pull my hair out. So now we do this over a couple of days. Typically on the last week of school. These hate are free! They go all the way up to 8th grade.

I also like to treat them to an end of the year gift. Now.... I'm big on not HAVING to do ANYTHING in terms of gifts for students. You gave them the gift of an education all year, you loved them, you nurtured them, you supported their families, and guided them on their path to growing their brain. Plus let's be honest some of these crazy pinterest ideas can easily break your bank. BUT! If you have the stock why not?? I ALWAYS HAVE PLAYDOH. ALWAYS. Sooooooo why not give my extra out before it dries up? BOOM. And EOY gift that was printing a tab and taping it on. These tags are free! I use them for back to school AND for the end of the year.

Our year is wrapping up. I have a lot of feels this year about it, but I'm soaking up all the in be tween moments I have left with this group and once the haze tapers off I'll reflect back on all the things I learned and adjust for next year. I know, even after so many years we still learn, that's nuts.

Stick around for more ideas! More to come!

Hugs from your friendly neighborhood Kindergarten teacher,

Chels