As the school year draws to a close, both teachers and students are likely to find themselves feeling both excited and overwhelmed. As the teacher, you are probably more likely to be subject to feelings of overwhelm. Especially as you try to manage students’ excitement for summer.
One of the reasons the end of the year can feel overwhelming is trying to keep every student engaged in learning. The warmer the days get, the more and more students seem to lose interest in learning. However, there is still plenty of learning to be had before the end of the year!
That is why activities designed specifically for the end of the year are so important.
End of Year Activities
End-of-year learning activities are designed to prioritize both fun and learning. They engage elementary students while still emphasizing the importance of learning, up until the very last school day.
These types of activities are designed with the last month of school in mind. Therefore, they often focus on themes like the end of the school year, the last day of school, and summer.
In addition, these activities are flexible! The last month of school can be quite inconsistent with interruptions. From testing and assemblies to field day and field trips, there seems to be a school activity every week in May. Therefore, finding end of school year activities that are easy to modify is essential.
With all of this in mind, we created learning activities that can be implemented at any time. Keep reading to find the ones that are most likely to excite your students.
End of Year Read Alouds
One of the best ways to keep kids engaged during the end of the school year is to maintain a routine. Therefore, continuing to engage in a weekly read aloud is essential.
However, students may still need a little extra push to get excited about reading. Therefore, the type of book you choose is important.
We found that using books that are related to the end of the year is wonderful because they help students make connections. In addition, good old funny kids’ books are always great as well as books connected to other spring themed lessons.
Below are our favorite read aloud titles to engage young readers during the end of the school year. If you are not familiar with these titles we have provided a quick summary to help you choose which books may be best for your classroom.
Last Day Blues Read Aloud
The Last Day Blues is a children’s book written by Julie Danneberg and illustrated by Judy Love. The story follows a group of students and their teacher on the last day of school.
As they prepare to say goodbye to each other and move on to the next grade level, the students worry about leaving their friends and teacher behind. However, the teacher helps them focus on the positive aspects of moving on, such as new experiences and new friends.
Throughout the book, the author emphasizes the importance of cherishing memories and embracing change. “The Last Day Blues” is a heartwarming story that helps children prepare for the end of a school year or the beginning of a new one.
When It’s the Last Day of School Read Aloud
When It’s the Last Day of School is a children’s book written by Maribeth Boelts and illustrated by Hanako Wakiyama. The story takes place on the last day of school and follows a group of students who are excited to be finishing the school year.
However, they also feel a sense of nostalgia and sadness about leaving their classroom, friends, and teacher behind. The story explores the mixed emotions that can arise on the last day of school and how to cope with them.
Like Last Day Blues, this is a wonderful book to help young kids navigate the different feelings at the end of the school year. This makes it a wonderful book to teach alongside end of year reflection activities, like our STEM Time Capsule activity or a memory book.
Hotel Bruce Read Aloud
Hotel Bruce is a children’s picture book written and illustrated by Ryan T. Higgins. The story follows a bear named Bruce who returns home from his vacation to find that mice have taken over his house and turned it into a hotel.
Despite his best efforts to kick them out, Bruce realizes that he’s outnumbered and decides to go along with their plans. As the hotel business booms, Bruce becomes increasingly exhausted from all the work he has to do to keep the hotel running smoothly. In the end, the mice realize the error of their ways and decide to give the house back to Bruce.
This fun and whimsical tale is a great choice for helping students make connections to possible travel plans during the summer. In addition, they will learn important lessons on teamwork and sharing space with others.
Are You My Mother? Read Aloud
Are You My Mother? is a children’s book written and illustrated by P. D. Eastman. The story follows a baby bird who hatches while his mother is away from the nest. Confused and alone, the bird sets out on a search for his mother, asking various animals and machines along the way if they are his mother.
As he travels through the town, he encounters a dog, a cow, a plane, and other creatures, but none of them are his mother. Just when he is about to give up hope, the baby bird finally finds his mother and they are joyfully reunited.
The book is a sweet and heartwarming story that teaches children about the importance of family and the value of perseverance. Beyond the enjoyment of the story, this book is a wonderful choice to pair with spring science lessons that you may be working on at this time of year.
Not Quite Narwhal Read Aloud
Not Quite Narwhal is a children’s picture book written and illustrated by Jessie Sima. The story follows Kelp, a unicorn born and raised in the ocean by a pod of narwhals. Kelp has always felt a bit different from the other narwhals and is fascinated by the unicorns he sees in the distance.
One day, Kelp discovers a group of unicorns on land and realizes that he is also a unicorn. He struggles to reconcile his identity as both a narwhal and a unicorn but ultimately learns to embrace both parts of himself.
With colorful illustrations and a heartwarming storyline, Not Quite Narwhal is a tale about self-discovery, acceptance, and the importance of being true to oneself. The book is a celebration of diversity and a reminder that it’s okay to be different and that there is beauty and strength in embracing one’s unique qualities.
Bees Informational Text Read Aloud
In addition to the several fun fiction books we also have an informational text read aloud that is great at this time of year. This Bee read aloud pairs with the informational text Bees by Laura Marsh.
Your students will enjoy learning about these buzzing insects that they are likely to encounter during summer break. You will enjoy that your students are continuing to engage with nonfiction texts!
End of Year Reading Bundles
All of the end of year read alouds that we shared above can be purchased individually or in bundles. This allows for you as the teacher to choose which books are best for your students.
Regardless of whether you choose one read aloud or get the whole bundle, each read aloud will provide you with an assortment of activities.
Every read aloud includes a variety of text-dependent activities that can be used for whole group, small group, and independent learning. Each read aloud also comes with a quiz and craft.
A single read aloud provides enough learning activities for three to five days. Therefore, one read aloud can cover an entire week of lessons!
To make it even easier, all our read alouds are easy to use as both digital or printable resources. As the teacher, you will love how easy it is to upload these literacy activities into Seesaw or Google Slides (especially if you already use Google Classroom!).
These digital read alouds are so fun and easy to use that you could even give one to students as a summer reading challenge!
End of Year Digital Activities
Our read alouds are not the only digital activities we have available for the end of the school year. One of our most popular digital learning activities for this time of year is our May Learning Quest.
Our May Learning Quest Bundle includes four digital learning activities. These activities are aligned with events or ideas that are related to spring and summer.
- Ocean Habitat Digital Activities
- Cinco De Mayo Digital Activities
- Worms Digital Activities
- End of the Year Digital Activity – School Reflection
Each lesson plan guides students through a mini-research project where they learn about the main topic. This includes having students read (or listen to) informational texts and respond to text-dependent questions.
These digital activities are excellent to use in small groups or for independent learning. To make planning easy, we suggest assigning one learning quest to students each week.
End-of-year printable activities
While digital resources are wonderful to use any time of year, by the end of the school year you may want your students to have a break from the screens. Therefore, we have created some printable activities as well.
Two of our favorite printable activities for the last weeks of school are our Summer Safety Word Search and Nature Scavenger Hunt. These two activities are part of our larger 10 Days Until Summer Countdown lesson pack.
If you only need a couple of printable resources for the last week of school then these two are great choices! Moreover, they are both FREE!
If you are looking for printable activities to REALLY get you through the last weeks of school though, we suggest checking out the complete resource. This survival kit is one of our most popular resources for keeping kids engaged and learning right up until the last day!
Summer Countdown Survival Kit
This resource provides you with all of the teaching resources needed the last ten days of school. Every day includes printable worksheets and activities for all core subject areas. for
Yup, that means you will have ten days worth of math, science, reading, and writing lesson plans! In addition, we have included art activities and other engaging activities for each day.
Take a look at the fun summer themes covered over the course of these ten days:
- Day 1: Summer Safety Day
- Day 2: Weather Day
- Day 3: Germ Day
- Day 4: National Parks Day
- Day 5: Aeronautics Day
- Day 6: Game Day
- Day 7: Nature Day
- Day 8: Summer Holidays Day
- Day 9: Water Day
- Day 10: Reflection Day
While we suggest using all ten days to make planning easy for you, each day is its own lesson plan. Therefore, if there is a surprise assembly that takes away from class time you don’t have to worry about missing a day. Just do it the next day!
Although we have planned everything out and provided detailed lesson plans, these activities do take some prep time. So, we encourage teachers to purchase this resource as early as possible to get prepared.
Once you have this survival kit printed and ready to use though, you will be able to just pull it out every year in the future. Read more about the 10 Day Countdown to Summer here.
End-of-year stem activities
Another one of our favorite end of school year activities for elementary students is our End of Year Summer STEM Challenge Time Capsule. This activity continues to engage students in inquiry-based learning while helping them reflect on the school year.
Just like all of our STEM activities, students are presented with a real-world situation. Then, they are asked to prepare to address the situation by going through the engineering process.
For this STEM activity, students are asked to build a time capsule that will hold all of their memories from this school year.
Beyond being a wonderful end of year activity on its own, this STEM challenge is a fun activity to pair with When It’s the Last Day of School or Last Day Blues. By pairing it with one of these books, you can cover reading standards along with science standards.
Last week of school ideas
When preparing for the last month and week of school there are several different ways to engage students in learning. The best ideas are the ones that will keep YOUR students engaged!
So, take a peek at the different activities listed above and choose your favorite activity or what you think will be the most engaging activity for your students. Whether you choose one of our bundles that includes several of the activities above or only one, we hope that it helps YOU have an amazing last month and last week of school with your students!
We'd like to send you a free interactive read-aloud that is easy to use in either a print or digital format!
