The BEST End of Year Activities for K-2
The end of the school year is near! I love this time of year. Sure, your students may be getting a little more antsy because it’s almost Summer time, but I always feel like I get to truly enjoy the classroom community that we have built together in May. Students are more independent, you have inside jokes together, and you’ve all formed sweet bonds with one another! It’s only right to fill the end of the year with lots of memorable activities to help students review what they’ve learned, and to celebrate the year you had together! Read below to see some of my absolute fave end of year activities for K-2 students.
Goodbye For Now!
My FAVORITE end of year read aloud is Goodbye For Now and I may be a little biased because it was written by ME! I couldn’t find a book that said everything that I wanted to say to my sweet students at the end of the school year, so I wrote one myself! This sweet book is sure to make you and your students reminisce in your sweet year together (and it might even make y’all shed a few happy tears together)!
The activity pack featured above pairs perfectly with the book and it’s FREE! Click here to download it!
You can grab the Goodbye For Now read aloud HERE.
Editable End of Year Memory Book
I’d never let my class leave at the end of the year without making sure that they had a fun memory book to take with them as a keepsake!
This memory book is for k-2 and it has lots of editable sections for you to customize it for your class! We fill out a page a day on the last week of school, and we end the last day with a little “autograph party” before our class End of Year Party.
Classroom YES Day!
Seriously, this may be my FAVORITE thing we do together all year. Every class is always obsessed with YES DAY! This idea stemmed from a book called YES Day. The book is about a boy that gets one day of “YES” each year. His parents have to say YES to everything he wants to do throughout the day! After reading the book Yes Day by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, I ask students if they think they’d like to have a Yes Day. The answer is always- YES!!!
While this may sound scary to some, it’s actually not at all! I set ground rules and let students submit their requests for Yes Day. Then the next day, I pull requests out of my “Yes Day jar” all day long and we do the things that students want to do. It is a super fun-filled day that is 100% student led, and that makes it perfect for the last week of school.
You can read more about how I structure and manage Yes Day in my classroom by clicking HERE.
End of Year Party Pack
The end of the year is so much fun but it’s also exhausting. Who has time to plan a class party when you’re trying to simultaneously do all of the things that need to be done to wrap up the year!? That’s why I created this super low-prep party pack! This party pack includes 7 print and go stations for you to use at your class party. Use a few or use them all!
You can read more about the End of the Year Party by clicking HERE.
Low-Prep Theme Days
Theme days are a fun way to review what we’ve learned throughout the year, but I like to do it in the easiest way possible, with little to no prep! These themed days are perfect to sprinkle in to your final days of school. With activities covering tons of math, literacy, phonics, writing, and science standards- these are sure to be a hit in your classroom and will still be super meaningful content review that is FUN! Grab these fun themed days below:
Want to do ALL of the themed days? Grab them at a discount HERE!
Want to read more about each themed day? Check out my End of Year Themed Day Blog.
End of Year Writing Craftivities
These craftivities are easy to prep, and they make such fun keepsakes for the end of the school year! Students can write about how “this year rocked,” they can “taco ‘bout their grade,” and they can “scoop up what they learned!”
Each craftivity includes several different writing responses for you to choose from.
Rockin’ Craftivity can be found HERE.
Summer Math Craft Review
The end of the school year is the perfect time to review everything you’ve learned! Students love review when it’s FUN and engaging, so these Summer Math Crafts are perfect! We did one craft each day leading up to the last day of school.
You can grab this Summer Math Craft Bundle HERE or you can grab each one individually if you don’t need all of them.
Pop Into Summer Art
Pop into Summer with this fun art project! This is a fun and easy project that you can do to help fill the long last few days of school. I cut out popsicle stencils for my students to trace 3 popsicles onto their paper. Then I showed them how to use crayons to make different design patterns on the popsicles. After putting design patterns on the popsicles, I let my students use watercolors on the rest of the project. The waxy crayons resist the watercolor and they shine through. Such a cute project!
End of Year Gifts
I used to struggle with End of Year gifts. I didn’t want them to break the bank, but I wanted them to be fun! I created a whole pack of fun tags for you to pair with different little gifts that can be found at the Dollar Tree or the Target Dollar Spot!
Hooray For Summer!
I love having a different themed day for the last few days of school, but I like to keep them super low-prep so that I don’t have to do too much!
I always keep a couple extra coloring books, packs of bubbles, chalk, and board games on hand for some of these fun days that I plan.
This “Hooray for Summer” page is editable so that you can insert your own fun days and you can grab the FREEBIE HERE.
Student End of Year Awards
End of Year awards are always exciting, but they’re even sweeter when each award is perfectly tailored to each student! These super fun student awards come with TONS of options and choices to fit all of the personalities in your classroom.
They’re all editable, but there’s even a special template for you to create your own if you would like! Grab these color and ink-saving awards here!
Mixed Practice Math Games
These print and play math games are the easiest math center to prep! They’re also great because they review lots of math concepts that students should be working on consistently. Perfect for the end of the school year!
You can grab the math game bundle HERE.
Holiday Word Work for Any Word List
Students always love these fun word work pages! I put a new one into our word work bin each week so students to have one choice that is a little more festive than the other word work that we usually do. Students practice writing word family words, phonics pattern words, heart words, sight words, word wall words, or whatever words your class is currently working on!
You can grab this word work HERE.
You can read more about my word work station HERE.
Summer Color By Code
These color by code pages make the perfect end of year review! Review phonics and math concepts with this fun pack! I always print this as a packet and staple it for students to keep in their desks at the end of the year. They can pull out the packet and work on it as a fast finisher activity. Super fun!
End of Year SWEET Word Hunt
Looking for a fun, hands-on, low-prep way to review phonics skills?! This word hunt is sooo easy to prep and it’s so much fun!
Math Around the Room
I love these Summer Math Around the Room centers because they are so easy to set up (just print, cut, and go) and students are always engaged when they are moving around the room “hunting” for the math cards.
Each pack includes over 20 math concepts so it doesn’t matter if you are currently working on number bonds, place value, shapes, or any other K-1 math concepts because they’re all in the pack for you!
You can grab the Math Around the Room Bundle at a discount HERE.
Second Graders in Training
I love getting students ready for the next grade level by telling them that they are “second graders in training!” I got this anchor chart idea from my friend Alle @LearningtoBloomClassroom on Instagram. We brainstorm all the things that 2nd graders would do, and how we can practice 2nd grade quality work and we add these ideas to the chart.
Then students wear a badge around school for 3 weeks. If they show 2nd grade quality work each day, they will get a sticker on the back of their badge. If they get 4/5 stickers in a week, they get to go to the treasure box on Friday. I use my “2nd grade quality” stamp on their papers when I see them doing great work. I ordered this stamp off of Amazon HERE (I had to personalize it to say “2nd Grade Quality”)
Unfortunately I do not sell these badges because it was not my original idea. I originally saw this idea on the Kinder Craze blog. Since my students are not in Kindergarten, I made badges for them to fit their grade level instead. It would not be right to sell something that is not my original idea, so you can visit the Kinder Craze blog HERE to see Maria’s badges for Kindergarten, or you can create your own using PowerPoint.
Our Future is SO Bright Activity
This is one of those activities that I use to fill in the long last few days of school. It’s so much fun and they always turn out so cute! This activity is a freebie from Joey Udovich and it can be found HERE.
Hang in there- the countdown has begun! You are so close to SUMMER! Fill your final days with some of the fun activities above, and let me know if you try any of them! I would love to hear from you!
