After spending the entire school year building and fostering a strong classroom community, I love to end the school year by celebrating all the friendships that were made during the year.
The end of the school year season can be hard on students. Some students are not looking forward to the summer or leaving the community that you have built. By weaving friendship tasks into your end-of-the-year routine, you give students a little something fun to look forward to each day and remind them that they are still a part of the community!
You will want to add these five friendship activities to your end-of-the-year toolbox to keep students engaged, feeling like an important part of your classroom community, and excited about the future with the friendships that they made in the class.
1. The countdown is on!
I love countdowns because you can use any amount of days that you want as you countdown to the last day of school, AND you can focus on any topic you think is important for your students...like friendships!
For our friendship countdown, we use 20 days. Each day is filled with a friendship-focused task to celebrate the good friends that we made this year! I love that the activities for each day include simple things that require no prep, like "Eat lunch with someone you never ate lunch with this year!" The kids LOVE that they get to spend a little extra time with someone from class each day!
You can encourage your students to work together with a friend from class while they complete this FREE end of the year project. For an extra twist, team up with another class and have students make a new friend while they complete this project together.
2. Try Some Friendship Task Cards
Students need help to remember the good times of the school year! So many times when we brainstorm our favorite memories, the kids always say, "I forgot about that!" These friendship task cards have a focus for students to reflect upon. I love the discussions and writing that come from this activity! Just print, go, and hang these task cards around the room!
3. Spread Positivity
Writing thank-you notes in my classroom is a staple! We love to write thank you notes to special staff members, parent volunteers, after special programs, and just about any time we are feeling grateful! Feeling grateful for friends and writing them thank-you notes at the end of the year is always a hit with my students!
Make sure each student gets a thank you note by having a student of the day that all students write to or by having students randomly select names from a basket. A quick note and picture on the inside mean a lot to students, especially at the end of the year when they are feeling down and not quite ready to leave the classroom community!
4. Read a Friendship Book
Got a few spare minutes at the end of the year in between all the festivities planned? Read a Friendship Book!
Try one of these favorites that are sure to get your students chatting about fond friendship memories of the school year! These are also the perfect read-aloud to share with students when those end-of-the-year friendship issues start to show up!
- Snail Crossing written by Corey Tabor
- Out of Nowhere written by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros
- Memory Jar written by Vera Brosgol
- Me and You in a Book For Two written by Jean Reidy
- Bravo, Avocado written by Chana Stiefel
- A Mouthful of Minnows written by John Hare
- Friends written by Daniela Sosa
As a no-prep followup, have students take a plain piece of paper, fold it into fourths, and use all four spaces to create illustrations or paragraphs (or both) of favorite friendship memories of the year!
5. Write a Community Building Letter
If you have followed me for a while, you know that building community is an important part of my entire school year! Community building should not just be done in the first two weeks of school.
One activity I love to do with students to build community all year long is to write letters to different students each month. The kids love writing them and receiving them! It is something that kids look forward to each month.
At the end of the year, we write longer letters and create scrapbook pages about each student. It is a great keepsake of the year and the friendships that were made!
Again, make sure each student gets a thank you note by having a student of the day that all students write to or by having students randomly select names from a basket. A quick note and picture on the inside mean a lot to students, especially at the end of the year when they are feeling down and not quite ready to leave the classroom community!
These 5 friendship celebration ideas for the end of the year are easy to implement and require little to no prep! They are also loved by students and will surely end your year on a positive note.
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Looking for more end-of-the-school-year activities that kids love? See more HERE.
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