End of Year Ideas and FREEBIE


The end of the school year can be a crazy time.  With a little preplanning, it can actually be fun and only a little crazy.  

I am a BIG believer in a picture is worth a thousand words.  I love to take pictures of my students in action and put them on our class website.  I found that when I did this consistently, my parents consistently read the postings on my website.  I cannot stress the consistency part enough.  If you want your parents to look at your website, you have to be consistent with your posting. Pictures of their children are the perfect incentive for them to check your site. I usually uploaded pictures at the end of the week showing what we had done.  Sometimes my posts were just a sentence or two about what was happening in the picture.

Posting pictures is a great way to communicate with parents. If you haven't done this yet, I would encourage you to try it.  You will be pleasantly surprised at how pictures build positive relationships with your parents.  I tell my parents at Back to School night that one of their children's weekly homework assignments is to do "show 'n tell"  using our pictures.  Parents feel like they have a better understanding of what is going on in the classroom when they see all of the Kodak moments.

These pictures are also useful for the end of the year slideshow. I had a huge collection showing all of the fun stuff we had done that year.  Each week I chose a few of the best ones to add to my EOY file. Then in May, it was a simple thing to add these pictures to a slideshow. A few minutes each week adding these to my EOY file, made my end of the year much less hectic.  You can add music to the slideshow.  Some years I have added theme songs from movies.  Other years I have used songs that had special memories for my class.  One year I began the song with the instrumental version of the Van Halen song "Right Now".

Click on the picture to listen to this.

I invited the parents to join us for our "Hollywood Premiere" starring their children.  We ate popcorn, watched the show, and laughed at all of the happy memories.

Are you planning a Hollywood theme next year?  I have a Star Student packet that is editable and integrated with social studies, language arts, and other subjects that works perfectly with this.  One of the activities for the star student is to decorate a star for the class Hollywood Walk of Fame.  You could make a Walk of Fame if you want to do a Hollywood themed end of the year party.  Here is a free sample from my star student packet.

Click HERE to download this freebie.


I have some more end of the year ideas on my A+ May Pinterest Board .

  
Fern has a few tips to share with you, too.  Hop over to her blog!


Each week, Fern and I will share a teacher tip. We love to read teacher blogs and the latest teacher idea books and hope you do, too!  Stop by Fern's blog and my blog each week for our latest tips.  We hope you will share your ideas, too.  


How do you celebrate the end of the year?

Looking for more ideas?  Click on the pictures below.





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