| If you missed it, you may also be interested in “End-of-Year Letters and Reflecting on the School Year” and other EOY activities listed HERE. |
The final days of school can be hectic and full. Here are just a few low-prep creative activities that allow students to reflect, celebrate, and just enjoy one another!
My students easily created ANIMOTO videos in one sitting and they make beautiful visual portfolios or scrapbooks! The students love the professional look and background music. It’s all free and you can see a sample HERE. If photos of the class or student work are not available, students could create digital awards honoring their classmates.
DIGITAL FIELD TRIPS / SCAVENGER HUNTS
Low-key exploration on the web that includes a mystery or a scavenger hunt can be a welcome break from end-of-the-year testing and events. I created the virtual field trip and scavenger hunt “Oh, the Places You May Go!” for just that purpose. After completing it, students might be inspired to create their own, an activity that would incorporate a number of creative and critical thinking skills and evaluation of reliable sources.
You’ll find all virtual scavenger hunts HERE, and all are FREE. Several others would be great for the end of the year including On the Hunt for Amazing Beach Wildlife and On the Hunt for Maggie O’Brady, Storybook Lady.
FUN INDOOR and OUTDOOR PUZZLES and EVENTS
Take your kids outside and enjoy a fun challenge in the spirit of a field day event. You may not have time for an all-day event like this one, but any one of the activities, like these toothpick puzzles done with pool noodles cut in half, could be done on its own. What a great way to just enjoy being together in the final days of school. Find them HERE.
My Solving Fun friends, Marcy Tivol and Hillary Miller, continue to create wonderful kits and resources that make puzzling fun. They sell life-size Sudoku puzzle mats like the one shown below, which could be fun to surprise students with this time of year.
MATHEMATICAL ART LESSONS and PUZZLES
These “edutaining” math art activities, shared by Clarissa Grandi (@c0mplexnumber), intrigue students, and most only require paper and colors! You’ll find instructions, downloadable presentations, and student handouts- all free. Perfect for students who are mentally weary after end-of-year testing. These dice puzzles and Math and Logic progressive puzzles would be fun to share with students, too, if you are new here and haven’t seen them.
HANDS-ON DESIGN CHALLENGES
This would be a great time to try any of the following if you haven’t incorporated them throughout the year!
- IMPOSSIBLE CHALLENGES
- PAPER AIRPLANE DESIGN (Teach Engineering)
- LEANING TOWER OF PASTA (Teach Engineering)
- NAKED EGG DROP (Teach Engineering)
- LOGISTICS FOR KIDS: A LOW-PREP DESIGN CHALLENGE
A “P.A.T.” ON THE BACK ~ GAMES / PUZZLES / CONTESTS
In our classroom, we had a closet full of brain games, puzzles, and building tools such as K’Nex® and ZOME® kits. Every once in a while, I gave students “Preferred Activity Time” – a P.A.T. on the back for their hard work and perseverance! You can read all about the benefits I discovered in this post. We always had P.A.T. during the last class of the year.
Contests can be fun, too. If you missed the previous post about hosting an end-of-year THINK-A-THON, you might like to check out the indoor activities. They can be put together quickly and keep kids thinking while they’re having fun. You could also introduce a new puzzle. You can find several tutorials HERE.
If you have end-of-year ideas, we’d love to add them to our HOLIDAYS/ SEASONAL page. Share your photos and bulletin board displays as well! Comment below or send a MESSAGE. We’re also sharing ideas in our Facebook group. Join us!