Like teaching remotely, ending the school year while teaching remotely is anything but ideal. We miss our students and our classroom communities we’ve built. And even more upsetting is the lack of closure students, and teachers will have this year. When schools shut down in mid-March, we had no idea it would be for the entire school year.
However, one of the best things we can do for our students and ourselves right now is to stay positive for our students. Here is a list of ten different end-of-the-year activities that you can do remotely with your students.
Collaborative Google Slide Project
With a collaborative Google Slide project, you would assign each student one Google Slide to create. Students could fill their Slide with pictures, favorite quotes from the year’s readings, what they learned from the class, or their favorite memories from the school year. The options are endless!
Once everyone submits their completed Google Slide, and you compile them into one presentation, you can share the presentation with all of your students on Google Classroom.
Video Advice for Next Year’s Students
A neat way to wrap up the school year is to have your students submit a quick video of themselves advising next year’s students. Prompt your students to record a video of themselves sharing their best advice. After you compile all of the videos, you can post the class video to Google Classroom. Also, you’ll have a video that you’ll share with your students next year.
If you like the class video ideal, there are quite a few ways to modify this activity. Besides offering advice, students can share their favorite memories of the class or talk about the most important thing they learned.
If you have a lot of students like me, you’ll want to keep it short and limit your students to 30 seconds or less. However, if you don’t have that many students, you can have them share longer videos.
Graphic Essay
If you are looking for a skills-driven academic project for your class’s final exam, you can try a graphic essay. To start, you’ll have your students select a topic in which they feel passionate about.
Students will research the topic, write an introduction, formulate their big ideas, and organize it all onto a graphic essay. One thing that I love about the graphic essay is that students can post their work on collaborative sites like Padlet so that you can showcase everyone’s projects.
You can read more about the graphic essay by reading this blog post.
Digital End of the Year Activities
My digital end of the year activities resource is filled with quite a few different last week of school assignments and activities that you can assign remotely or digitally.
One of the activities in this last week of school activities pack is a future letter to self. If you like the idea about students finishing the year by writing a letter, they can also write a letter to one of your future students, and they can write a letter to another teacher or even write a letter to the principal.
In addition to the letter-writing activities, there is a top 10 countdown activity, a school year playlist activity, a student survey, and more.
End of the Year Class Survey
One of the most efficient ways to survey students is by using Google Forms. My SMARTePlans End of the Year Student Survey is entirely ready to go. It includes a variety of questions asking students about their experience in your classroom.
If you’d like to create your own Google Forms student survey, you can check out my blog post about using Google Forms. It will help you get started.
End of the Year Escape Room
A great way to end the school year is by assigning an end of the year escape room. My growth mindset digital escape room is a great way to end the school year on a positive note. With a digital escape room, students work through a series of digital tasks on Google Forms.
Letter of Appreciation
A letter of appreciation is a great way to help students think and reflect. As an end of the year assignment, you could assign a letter of appreciation assignment to your students. Students could write a letter of appreciation to a staff member at your school, a fellow teacher who helped them, an adult in their life who has been a positive influence, or to a company or business who has supported them.
End of the Year Send-Off via Flipgrid or Padlet
One last way to conclude the school year virtually is to create an end-of-the-year sign-off. Have students create a video, poem, Slide, or another multimedia project. Then, you can use sites like Flipgrid or Padlet to post them for all of the students in your class to see.
