I’m sure you don’t need reminding, but it’s almost the end of the year! For the next few weeks I’ll be pointing you to some gems from the online archives of the Responsive Classroom newsletter, all focused on ending the year on a positive note. I hope you’ll pick up some ideas that will help you bring closure to the school year, for yourself and for your students.
This week, let’s have a look at year-end activities. We asked about this last week on Facebook, where lots of people shared what they do in their classrooms. Check that out, add your ideas (here or on Facebook), and for further reading, try these articles, which describe activities focused on two important end-of-year goals: encouraging reflection on accomplishments and celebrating community.
Learning Celebrations – Leigh Weaver writes about classroom learning celebrations, which she holds several times a year – they’re a time when parents come to school to celebrate children’s accomplishments. Even if you haven’t held an event like this yet, you could have one at the end of the year!
Talent Days – Doni Princehorn, a music teacher, describes an event where children share activities at which they feel especially skilled.
Success Night – Summit Elementary School developed a schoolwide celebration that takes the place of a traditional year-end award ceremony. (This article is an adapted excerpt from In Our School: Building Community in Elementary Schools by Karen L. Casto, EdD and Jennifer R. Audley.)
Let me know what you think of these activities, and share what’s worked well for your class or your school. In the next installment, I’ll point you toward articles about managing the behavior challenges that often come along with the last six weeks of school!
The other posts in the Last Weeks of School series are “A Sense of Closure”, and “Staying Focused,” and “Ideas from Teachers.”
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I like the concept of end of the year celebrations. I personally want to do more cool things like this. Are the celebrations classroom wide . Meaning even if you have behavoir issues those students still partake. I know we never want to single kids out, but what do we do for the onces who haven’t learned how to stay in the community of learners all year!
Corey Carter
2nd Grade Teacher Richmond ,
Va
Corey-
That’s an important question! We want to make sure that all students are feeling successful at the end of the year. One of the problems I have with traditional awards ceremonies is that the kids who are already successful (and getting feedback about that all the time) get the big awards while the ones who aren’t as successful (and, unfortunately, often receive feedback about that all the time too) don’t. In fact, I find that award ceremonies often deincentivize (Is that a real word?) and demotivate learning for kids who struggle with school the most. It’s further evidence for them that they can’t hack it.
In my class, we would spend time celebrating class-wide accomplishments from the year (like our big hot air balloon projects and our poetry anthology) in a variety of ways. We spent time reflecting on our important work through looking at pictures from the year, reminiscing at Morning Meeting (“Our sharing for today: What’s something that we accomplished as a class this year that you think was really cool?”), a class Jeopardy game, and other end-of-the-year activities.
Individual students should also do a lot of reflecting about their own personal gains. For example, one student might have found a passion and positive energy for writing for the first time. Another student might have learned some new cooperative group strategies. Another student might have read 10 new books. Students can create posters, mobiles, slide shows, portfolios, etc. to share their personal accomplishments (which everyone has) with classmates and family members. If you want to do a formal celebration of individual accomplishments, consider having an end of the year Open House where families can peruse projects and work samples that students select (with your coaching and help). That can be a lot of fun!
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