My Favorite End of the Year Ideas From Pinterest

What a great way to encourage your students to read during the summer!  Create an anchor chart together, having your third, fourth, or fifth graders come up with fun places that they can read.  This would be a great, no prep activity the last week of school.

I love this simple idea!  Give each upper elementary student a journal that they can write in during the summer as an end of year gift.  On the first page of each journal, write a sweet note to that student.

You could even help jump start their journal writing with one of these end of year writing prompts and activities. 

I usually didn't have time for a new bulletin board at the end of the year, but I still think this is a fun, valuable activity!  Have 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students vote on the best books of the year - their favorite chapter book, nonfiction book, picture book, poem, funniest book, the best illustrated book, etc.

This would be a fun way to reflect on what all you read during the year.  If you don't want to do a bulletin board, you could display the results in a simpler way for students to see.

Need some book ideas for next school year?  These books make a great addition to any upper elementary classroom!

This is another gift idea that would encourage students to keep learning during the summer.  Give your 3rd grade, 4th grade, or 5th grade students a small kit with a variety of objects in it.  Include instructions on how they can experiment with those objects or use them to build something.

Check out these other end of year gift ideas for upper elementary students.  

If you click on this pin and read the blog post that goes along with this activity, you'll see that it was created to "erase meanness" and not as an activity during the last days of school.  However, the end of the year is a great time to have students reflect on their behavior and think about how they should act based on how they want to be remembered.

Invite parents to come before the last day of school and create their own packet with ideas for keeping their child engaged and learning during the summer!

You could make copies of recommended reading, math game ideas, a note from you, writing prompts, and other resources you think might be helpful.  This Summer Packet is a fun, no prep packet to send home with your students this summer.

This would be a fun and relatively easy end of year bulletin board.  Have students come up with their own hashtag for the end of the year.  I would probably encourage students to create a hashtag based on a memory or something they had learned during the school year.

Even if you don't create a bulletin board, this would be a fun activity for students to complete and share with the class.

What a great way to make each student feel special!  On the last day of school, lay out some red butcher paper and have each student "walk the red carpet" while the rest of the class cheers.  Or, have a class graduation ceremony where each student gets a diploma.

This makes for a meaningful end of year party. 

The last week of school is a great time to have students complete some STEM activities.  The blog post with this pin has a variety of different, practical, free ideas for fun STEM activities.

Although this pin is geared towards a parent celebrating the end of the year with their own children, hanging streamers in the doorway would be a fun and easy way to celebrate at school!

If you've been taking pictures throughout the school year, create a collection of pictures on a DVD and make a copy for each student!  Or if you are tech savvy, make a slideshow or movie presentation with the pictures and make copies of that.  What a great end of year gift!

Check out these other end of year student gift ideas.