Heidi: This is episode 258 of Teacher Approved.
Emily: Hey there. Thanks for joining us today. As we move
further into May, it's starting to feel real. The end of the
school year is right around the corner, and so that's why we are
bringing back one of our favorite episodes, all about end
of Year celebrations.
Heidi: This isn't just about filling time or throwing a
party. It's about helping your class feel closure and ending
the year on purpose instead of just sliding into summer. This
episode will give you practical ideas and a clear way to think
about celebrations so they work for you and your students.
Emily: And what's extra fun is that these ideas come from you,
our listeners. So whether you're planning something big, keeping
it simple, or still not sure what your end of year will look
like, this is a great place to start.
Heidi: Let's get into it.
You're listening to Teacher Approved, the podcast helping
educators elevate what matters and simplify the rest. I'm
Heidi.
Emily: And I'm Emily. We're the creators behind Second Story
Window, where we give research-based and teacher
approved strategies that make teaching less stressful and more
effective. You can check out the show notes and resources from
each episode at secondstorywindow.net.
Heidi: We're so glad you're tuning in today. Let's get to
the show.
Emily: Let's talk about this week's resource of the week, our
summer review packets. Over the years, we have often been asked
which grade level of our spiral review morning work would work
best for students to practice with during the summer. So we
decided it was time to make a dedicated summer review packet.
Heidi: Unlike a lot of other summer review packets you may
see around the internet that contain a bunch of different
types of worksheets, ours is a carefully designed review that
packs in as much practice as possible on each page. The
questions follow a pattern, so students will be familiar with
the weekly activities quickly.
Emily: Each grade level has the same format as the morning work
for that grade level, so it's the perfect practice for your
students if they've already been doing the morning work with you.
But it's also designed to work as a standalone resource for
students who have never done any of our morning work.
Heidi: Each packet contains 50 pages of math and ELA spiral
review, which is 10 weeks worth of content. And of course, we
include an answer key as well.
Emily: While these pages are perfect for a summer review,
they also make a wonderful end of your cumulative review in
class. You can find our summer packets at
secondstorywindow.net/summerpackets, and the link will be in our show
notes.
Heidi: I don't know if you guys have noticed, but here in the
US, the end of the school year is almost upon us.
Emily: Well, unless you teach year round.
Heidi: Year round teachers, you have our condolences.
Emily: So that brings us to the topic of, how do you end a
school year?
Heidi: We put so much, so much thought and energy into starting
the school year, but I think we are all running on fumes by the
end. There is just not much time or energy left to close out the
year. You maybe have noticed this, but we still want it to
matter.
Emily: I think if 2020, taught us anything, it's that ending,
well, matters. That abrupt ending we had that year just
really stung.
Heidi: And it still stings, if I'm being honest.
Emily: That was rough for us.
Heidi: Our little preschoolers went home one day and just never
came back.
Emily: Yeah.
Heidi: So how do we celebrate in a tangible way the moment that
is the end of the school year?
Emily: Well, there's no right or wrong answer. It's just about
choosing something that feels meaningful to you.
Heidi: Right. So I'd start by asking myself how to acknowledge
the community that has grown in my classroom during the year,
and then I would look for ways to celebrate those small humans
that have just come to take up so much of my heart. And I don't
mean that does sound serious or solemn, even if the end of the
year can feel heavy, or not, depending on the year you've
had. But I think a lot of times the most tangible way to
celebrate a shared experience is to have fun together.
Emily: Right. So with that in mind, we asked the Teacher
Approved community to share the ways they celebrate the end of
the year, and they offered such engaging suggestions that we
want to pass them on to you.
Heidi: So one activity that was mentioned several times was
doing an alphabet countdown. If you aren't familiar with this,
each day during the last few weeks of school, you do a fun
activity from A to Z. Lisa shared these suggestions. A is
an all about me sheet that they can share with the class. B is
sit by a buddy day, I is for ice pops from the teacher. Her
countdown lasts for 23 days because she combined some days.
Emily: Those are such fun ideas, and I love that she keeps it
simple. She could have done Baking Beautiful Banana Bread
day for B. That's a ton of commitment to stretch out over
20 plus days.
Heidi: Yeah, you're gonna burn out real quick if you feel like
you have to make something a big production in order for it to be
a celebration. And please note that that comment was directed
largely my own go-big-or-go-home tendencies, but Lisa was smart
to choose something like sitting by a buddy as a celebration.
It's low effort from the teacher side, but it would be so fun and
memorable for the students.
Emily: Yeah, I love that. I would love to know what other
suggestions teachers have for their alphabet countdowns,
especially for those trickier letters. If you've got a good
idea for Q or any other letter, will you come share it in the
Teacher Approved Facebook group?
Heidi: Yeah, I'm really curious to hear other suggestions.
Emily: But if you don't want to commit to a 26 day countdown,
Dawn has this suggestion. We do a balloon pop the last 10 days,
with each balloon containing a card with a special activity,
like outdoor chalk day or yoga time.
Heidi: Yoga! There we go. There's our Y. And I think the
balloon popping would be a definite hit with the kids.
Emily: Maggie suggested a quieter type of countdown. She
says, my class made a paper chain. Each child got one to two
strips of paper, enough to make as many links as we needed for
the number of days left. On their own slip of paper, they
wrote something they have been grateful for at school this
year. Each morning, we take one off, and the student who wrote
it gets to read it to the class and then hang it on our grateful
wall.
Heidi: I love how thoughtful and reflective that is. It's such a
beautiful way to add meaning to your celebratory countdowns.
Emily: Besides countdowns, we had several recommendations for
end of year theme days.
Heidi: Lacey says we have theme days for the last eight days. We
start with color day, sport, Safari, Hawaiian and tie dye.
Emily: And Jamie recommends Camp Skeeter, and she typed that all
in caps, so you know she really loves it. She says they do gummy
worm math, catching insects, scavenger hunts, letters from
camp, flag raising, morning exercises, chairs put away,
desks organized as cabins, cabin competitions, care packages sent
from home. I'm not done, there's more. A campfire in the center
of the classroom, hiking. Bathroom is referred to as the
latrine. Lunchroom is the mess hall. The list goes on and on. I
have students from years ago now, adults who still talk about
how much they loved camp Skeeter.
Heidi: That sounds like so much fun. I can understand why
Jamie's students remember that. And Emily and I love theme days.
Emily: Especially camping. That's the best one.
Heidi: Theme are just a great way to keep students engaged at
the end of the year.
Emily: As we've mentioned before, student engagement
depends on that balance between routine and novelty. At the end
of the year, routine is tipping way into the boredom side of the
balance.
Heidi: So adding surprise, whether that is through a theme
day or other activity, it helps keep things from getting out of
control.
Emily: And a theme day is a great way to add to the surprise
and delight that help regular activities feel like novelties,
which is like, the secret key to doing a theme day, is that it
doesn't actually have to be that, like, exciting, but when
you make it themed, suddenly your normal activities seem
spectacular.
Heidi: Yeah, anything themed feels fun and novel, and that is
always going to feel like a celebration, especially at the
end of the year.
Emily: Yeah. We also like theme days because they take some of
the pressure off the teacher. In episode seven of our podcast, we
said that theme days are a little moment of peace dropped
from the teacher saints above.
Heidi: And I still stand by that. Theme days are nice
because you can plan and prep them in advance, and the kids
are so engaged that a lot of the management hassles that come at
the end of the year just kind of vanish for a while. In my mind,
theme days are always kind of paired with the feeling of a big
exhale. They just give you a moment to get your feet under
you again.
Emily: Plus, if you give the kids enough independent
activities during your theme day, you have time to work on
your independent activities like finishing grading or updating
cumulative files.
Heidi: That's way less fun than what the kids are doing. But
like Emily mentioned, episode seven of our podcast is all
about theme days. We walk you through the seven steps of
planning a successful theme day and share our tips and tricks.
So definitely revisit that one. We also have two
already-done-for-you theme day resources in our shop.
Emily: We call them delight days, D, L, I, T, E, which
stands for, obviously, Differentiated Learning and
Integrated Theme Experience.
Heidi: We can't help ourselves around an acronym.
Emily: Even if no one else appreciates them.
Heidi: Everyone needs a hobby.
Emily: Each theme set for first through third grade includes a
differentiated packet brain breaks, themed writing activity,
task cards, differentiated whole class review activity, a themed
closed reading passage and more. We have a space theme and a
camping theme for only $5 each, and we'll link to those in the
show notes.
Heidi: We call our camping day Camp Learn A Lot instead of Camp
Skeeter, but you could still apply a lot of Jamie's camp day
suggestions.
Emily: Chantal's class has a fort day. She has the kids bring
cardboard boxes and blankets and then uses those on the students
desks to create awesome forts and read with flashlights.
Heidi: I have never heard that before, but that sounds like so
much fun. I bet that's something the kids will remember forever.
Emily: Yeah. Besides camp day and fort day, Melissa recommends
a glow day, but if you don't want to commit to a whole glow
day, you could still have a lot of fun with just a glow party.
Heidi: Yes, Cindy says get donations from families, block
windows with black paper, let kids tape the glow sticks on
their clothes, turn off the lights and turn on the music
when everyone is ready.
Emily: That would definitely be kid heaven. Another fun idea is
board game day. Mindy says she has her kids bring games from
home with the stipulation that there are no electronic games.
The kids must switch to different games after they
finish each one, and the only rule is the child who brings the
game must know how to play it and be able to teach it to
others. If they bring chess, all players must know how to play
already.
Heidi: Those are the tips of a woman who has survived a game
day or two.
Emily: Yep. And one of my kids had a game day recently, and
that was the rule. You can't bring a game once you know the
rules to play it.
Heidi: Yeah, you got to think ahead to keep these fun
celebrations from tipping into overwhelm. But it is worth it to
see the kids so delighted.
Emily: And it is just fun to end the year with all these fun,
happy memories. Another party idea comes from Sam, who
celebrates everybody's birthdays at once with a big party for
everyone.
Heidi: I haven't done a big birthday party before, but if my
birthday fell on a school day, I usually did a big un-birthday
party for the class, and so we would celebrate my actual
birthday and their un birthdays together. But I can see how it
would be a really fun end of the year activity to do a whole
birthday party with everyone.
Emily: Yeah, I did it on my birthday too, because sometimes
Heidi: So we are about to the end of our celebration ideas,
mine would be right at the beginning of the school year,
that's when my birthday is, but I really like it for an end of
the year celebration. And that really keeps birthday
disruptions to a minimum during the rest of the year, if you
just do it all on one day and go all out.
but I wanted to make sure and share this idea from Cindy. She
says, Something I did earlier this year was a drive in movie.
I had my lunch lady save big, sturdy boxes for me. I gave
students time to work on their cars, then served them popcorn
and a juice box and loaded a few Pixar shorts on a YouTube
playlist. In all, the movie time was about the last 15 minutes of
the day. We had already packed up and then students took their
cars home that day. Just FYI, one bus driver would not allow
the big boxes, so I had to contact families to come pick
them up.
Emily: Oh boy. Maybe just recycle the cars when you're
done. If you can find a way to store the boxes like Cindy did,
that would be such a fun activity. I'm sure the kids had
a blast making their cars and then the fun of watching a
movie. I wonder if she had to explain what a drive in movie
is.
Heidi: Oh, I'm sure she did. I don't think there are too many
of them left.
Emily: No, that makes me sad.
Heidi: Thank you for sharing that, Cindy, and thanks for the
heads up about the bus. There are always so many layers of
things to think through when you are a teacher.
Emily: And that's why we are so appreciative of all the teachers
that have shared their ideas. We've got a hard job, and it's
so helpful when someone else points out the potholes you
might not be aware of yet. So a huge thank you to everyone who
shared their tips with us for this week's episode.
Heidi: Teachers do a great job of looking out for each other,
especially at the end of the year, when we are all just
limping toward that finish line.
Emily: As you work on your end of year plans, we hope we've
shared some ways to make it a real celebration.
Heidi: Remember that a celebration doesn't have to be
big to be meaningful. It can absolutely just be about filling
time before the end of the school year in a way that
doesn't have everyone pulling their hair out.
Emily: Yep, those kids have to do something for six hours, and
learning about coordinate geometry is probably not the
solution to that problem two weeks before the last day of
school.
Heidi: But however you choose to mark the end of the year, we
hope you find a way to do it that is meaningful to you. Look
for tangible ways you can honor the magic of what has happened
the past nine months in your classroom, acknowledge the
upcoming transition and celebrate the bonds of your
classroom community.
Emily: We'd love to hear your thoughts on how to add
celebration to the end of the school year. Please come join
the conversation in our Teacher Approved Facebook group.
Now let's talk about this week's Teacher Approved tip. Each week
we leave you with a small, actionable tip that you can
apply in your classroom today. This week's teacher approved tip
is make a display reflecting on this year and anticipating the
year to come.
Heidi: So one way that I celebrated the end of the year
as a second grade teacher was having the kids reflect on what
we had done as a class. I started with a discussion about
everything we had done during the year, and I listed the kids
memories on the board. I kept going until we had a pretty long
list, and then I drew names and let each student pick a memory.
I didn't want anyone to get stuck with a lame memory, like
the day the cafeteria ran out of tacos or something like that. So
I made sure that our list of memories was longer than we
actually needed, and that meant coming up with like 30 or so
memories, which took some thinking, but we got there.
Then once the kids had their assigned memory, their job was
to illustrate it and then maybe write a sentence about it. At
the very least, they needed to title it so I knew what the
picture was. Sometimes, you know how kids drawings are, a little
abstract. And then I arranged them in chronological order and
hung them in the hall as a timeline. Because I knew where I
was going to display this, I measured the wall ahead of time
and then cut down paper so that they would fit in a row on that
wall, and then I added the title, Looking Back at Second
Grade.
But then I left it up all summer, and before school
started in the fall, I just changed out the title to Looking
Ahead to Second Grade. This meant that I had something
outside my room for back to school all ready to go, and it
gave my new batch of second graders an idea of what they
could look forward to. And that was fine, and it was so handy to
have it done already. But the reason I really loved this was
that it meant so much to my former students to see that they
still had a place in the story of my class. They would often
stop by and talk about what memories were jogged by seeing
our pictures.
Emily: Which is probably especially important at the
beginning of the school year, when they're in a new class that
they don't feel as comfortable yet, to walk down the hall and
see those happy memories is just a happiness boost for everyone.
If you want to do something like this, you don't have to display
it in the hallway, if that doesn't work for you, and you
don't have to put it in a chronological row. The idea is
that it's just nice to do something now that will benefit
you when life is crazy at back to school time.
Heidi: I found that the key to making this successful, as I
learned the hard way, was to consider what has to happen in
your class during the summer. Because I was taping papers on a
brick, they just were no match for the humidity of the swamp
cooler and the industrial fans that were blowing on the newly
cleaned carpets. If the point of doing this is to reduce your
workload, you don't want to have to keep taping things up. So
learn from my mistakes and find a way to make it sturdy enough
to survive three months.
Emily: I wonder if you could put out a big piece of butcher paper
and tape everything to the butcher paper, and then you
could take it down easily and put it back up easily.
Heidi: Oh, handy dandy. You could probably even glue it on
the butcher paper and then be even more solid.
Emily: Yeah. Or you could cover it with butcher paper, like
somebody had suggested to us recently about covering up your
bulletin boards at the end of the year. For next year, you
cover them with butcher paper. But I still think the things
inside the butcher paper might fall with the humidity. So I
think doing it on butcher paper, you take it down, roll it up,
and then put it back up.
Heidi: Or someplace where you could use push pins. We are
going to problem solve this for y'all.
Emily: Yes, I do think it's such a fun idea, though, and if you
do this, we would love to hear about it.
Heidi: Yeah, or send pictures. Please send pictures.
Emily: Yes.
Heidi: To wrap up the show, we are sharing what we're giving
extra credit to this week. Emily, what are you giving extra
Emily: I'm giving extra credit to the book Yours Truly by Abby
credit to?
Jimenez. I gave extra credit last year to another one of her
books, Part of Your World, and this is actually the second book
in that series, but that just means there are some of the same
characters in both books. They're definitely standalone
stories that you can read in any order. In Yours Truly, you get a
little bit of everything. There's enemies to lovers, fake
dating, epistolary romance, though, I don't know if I'd go
as far as calling it that, when they only exchange letters for
like, a small portion of the book. But I keep hearing this
book described as that, so I threw that in too.
Somehow it all comes together well. I don't know how, but she
nailed it. I listened to the audiobook, which was fun because
there are dual narrators, which I love, and the male narrator is
my favorite male audiobook narrator ever, Zach Weber. If
you like Emily Henry, I think you'll enjoy this book. It's not
a flawless book. There are some things about it I would change,
but overall, excellent read that I just zipped through. And I
know everybody loves Emily Henry right now, and I do too, but I
think Abby Jimenez might be my most favorite author in the
adult romance genre right now.
Heidi: Well, I will have to check that out. I'm way behind.
It's been on my to be read for a long time. So
Emily: Come on.
Heidi: Gotta catch up.
Emily: What is your extra credit going to?
Heidi: I'm giving extra credit to a book too. It is Jane and
Edward by Melody Edwards. Not confusing at all to have those
double Edwards there, but we'll figure it out. So Jane Eyre is
my favorite book, and I'm such a sucker for any Jane adaptation.
And this happens to be a modern retelling, where Jane is a legal
secretary and Edward is a high powered attorney, of course, but
Melody, I think she did a really good job translating the story
into a more modern setting without just a cookie cutter
copy and paste of events. She's faithful to the original while
still adding really clever updates. But even if you have
never read Jane Eyre, I think you would still enjoy the story
as a modern romance, if that's your jam. If it's not, I can't
help you. The author also did a really great job at updating the
more problematic parts of that storyline.
Emily: What? In Jane Eyre?
Heidi: I know! I really enjoyed it and, but I think I would
maybe have liked it even more if the author had kept the story in
the first person, the way that Jane Eyre is written. I think it
would have really boosted the emotional impact of the story,
but that's just a minor quibble in an otherwise very
entertaining read.
Emily: Now the real question is, while you were reading, did you
picture Edward as Michael Fassbender?
Heidi: Yes, I did.
Emily: Okay, okay, then I will definitely read this book and
picture that as well.
Heidi: I even looked up pictures of him to make sure I had it
right.
Emily: That's dedication.
Heidi: That is it for today's episode. Try out some of these
teacher approved ideas for celebrating the end of the
school year with your class, and remember our teacher approved
tip to make a visual display of your year together with your
students.
Emily: Do you know a teacher friend who may enjoy this
episode? Sharing with a friend is the number one way you can
help us reach new listeners, and we appreciate it so much.
Heidi: We hope you enjoyed this episode of Teacher Approved. I'm
Heidi.
Emily: And I'm Emily. Thank you for listening. Be sure to follow
or subscribe in your podcast app so that you never miss an
episode.
Heidi: You can connect with us and other teachers in the
Teacher Approved Facebook group. We'll see you here next week.
Bye for now.
Emily: Bye.