End Of Year Activities With Kindergarten And First Grade

Can you believe it’s already that time? Can you? Or maybe you are thinking it’s never going to end! Either way, I have some ideas that will make the end of the school year go smoothly. Let’s go!

Academic Themes

If you are interested in some academic themes for the end of the year, check out this May blogpost. I give ideas for Camping, Insects, Ocean Animals and Zoo Animals.

May Activities For Kindergarten and First Grade

Review Skills

I love to have fun while reviewing skills. This resource, called View and Do, can work as a great review for letters, sounds, CVC words, long vowel words, digraphs, phonological awareness and so much more. You can also use this resource to introduce skills as well (so it would work for the following school year).

A picture of my View and Do Bundle of ELA skills with a link.

Bingo games are so much fun for kids too! Lots of boards that review skills!

Phonics Bingo Bundle picture showing the different bingo boards with a link to the resource.
Math Bingo Bundle picture showing the different bingo boards with a link to the resource.

Music

Here are some songs to end the year off right!

Cover of my end of year goodbye song and link to the resource.
Cover of my ice cream truck song and a link to the resource.

Memory Book

One of my favorite end of year activities is compiling the memory book pages and pictures for the year. I give each student a page each month to write a sentence and illustrate then I take a class picture or individual student picture for each month. I put all these pages and pictures into a binder and present this book to the kids at the end of the year. This is something I work on all year, but you can also do this during the last few weeks of school. There are some pages that are not seasonal or holiday related and the kids could do a page a day (favorite field trip, favorite part of school, etc) and put them in a book that you staple together with construction paper and add a few class pictures. There are many ways to use this. Check out this resource if you are looking for Memory Book ideas.

Cover of the Memory Book (or Scrapbook) that can work for end of year with a link to the resource.

Teaching About Summer

This is also a good time to teach about the season of summer. You can do writing activities or story problems. If you are in need of some resources check out the ones below.

Cover to the informational writing about summer and a link to the resource.
Cover to the write the room summer and a link to the resource.
Cover to summer story problems for use with Google Slides and a link to the resource.

Reader’s Theater

Another really engaging activity is having kids do reader’s theater or little short plays. They get into partners and practice reading their character parts. They can perform for the class or just for each other. Kids love plays. If you are in need of a reader’s theater I have one in my store.

Cover to a fun end of year readers theater about checks and a link to the resource.

End Of Year Gift

Are you searching for something to give your kids at the end of the year that will remind them of you and bring them some joy over the summer? Do you also want something that won’t break the bank? I like to get sand buckets at the dollar store and fill it with a few dollar store goodies such as bubbles, chalk and a pencil. Then I print off a summer packet with a few reading passages and writing pages and maybe a math game or two and give them their Memory Book (although the Memory Book might not fit in the bucket). Here is a picture of similar bucket that I use.

If you need some decodable passages that are perfect for kindergarten and first grade students click on the picture below.

Cover to my Short Vowel Program with a link to the resource.

How To End The Year Efficiently

Paperwork, report cards, inventory OH MY! How do you get everything done and keep track of it? My suggestion is to do a “brain dump” on a piece of paper of EVERYTHING you need to accomplish before you can walk out of the room on the last day of school. Then rank the order of importance. For example things that need to be done before the kids leave for the year are going to be more important than things you can do after school on that last day. Also, think about deadlines from your principal and secretary.

Once you have your list and it’s prioritized, then work on it. Take bite size pieces EVERY day until it’s done. Don’t burn yourself out. Batch out your lesson plans. This means plan out all your lessons in one sitting – get it all mapped out for the rest of the year and plug in the details so you can start prepping.

Can you come in early or stay late? Add 15 minutes (unless you can find this time during your work day hours) to your day when you are laser focused. Then knock out one (or part of one) thing on your list. If you can truly focus for those 15 minutes it’s amazing how much you can get done. If you can find multiple spurts of 15 minutes in your day that would be great too. You can get more done than you think! Although easier said than done, just know there is an end in sight!

Happy End Of The Year (almost)!