Woohoo! It’s finally here—the last day of school. While most kids are going to be super excited, others may have mixed emotions about the end of the school year. Make your last hours together extra special with some of these fun last-day-of-school activities, and send your students into summer with fantastic memories of the school year!
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1. Get these Last Day of School printables
Looking for quick and easy last-day-of-school activities? Grab our fun, free printables, and let your students choose the ones they like best.
2. Read end-of-year books to bring your class closure
There’s no better way to end the school year than—you guessed it—story time!
Kids love a good round or two of trivia, and online sources make prepping a trivia contest easy and customizable. Check out our huge compilation of trivia questions.
Kids love escape rooms, so they’re great activities for the last day of school. Theme yours to what you’ve learned during the year, facts about different classmates, or summer activities.
If you’re looking for fun last-day-of-school activities that get kids moving, hold an epic dance party! Consider having each class submit a song selection for the playlist. They could even choreograph their own special dance moves for when it comes on!
Scavenger hunts are not only educational, they’re a blast! Click the link below for creative scavenger hunts to use in the classroom or send home with students for the summer. To get started, download these free scavenger hunt worksheets.
Celebrate the last day of school with a splash! Check out the super-fun activities at the link below. And of course, what better way to end water day than with Popsicles?
Slam poetry is a unique form of expression that allows students to perform meaningful works of poetry in front of their peers. Give students a heads up and time to practice before the last day of school, then hold the slam as the culminating event.
End-of-year awards have been around forever. But instead of making it a competition for a chosen few, here’s a way to include everyone. Recognize academic and social-emotional skills with these fun colorful certificates.
Just didn’t have time (or money) to get around to that last great field trip you had in mind? No problem! Get out the popcorn and kick back with a fun and interesting virtual field trip.
Graffiti walls are an awesome way to encourage kids’ creativity. Why not give them free rein to record their favorite memories from the school year on the last day of school?
Try this activity if your group loves writing. Set up writing station directions such as: Create a scene from a play, write a story about you as the president, write a poem about your favorite season, create and describe your own brand-new holiday, etc. For extra fun, have a different snack at each station, and every so often take a break to share a few stories the students have produced.
The promise of a movie on the last day of school is a great motivator to inspire the best behavior from your students those last few weeks. Let your kids choose the movie, and on the last day, supply the popcorn and enjoy!
Start a new tradition that you love to end the school year with. We were inspired by a teacher who took snips of his beloved spider plant and started new plants to give to each of his students at the end of the year.
One sneaky way to keep the learning going, even on the last day of school, is with fun and engaging math games. Set up stations and let kids choose which ones they’d like to play with their friends.
As kids head off for summer, reading a ton of books is hopefully high on their to-do list. Get them excited for it by making some of these adorable bookmarks.
It may not officially be field day, but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy a few of your students’ favorite activities on the last day of school! Take a peek at the list below and revisit a few of your favorites.
How-to drawing books are always a big hit with kids. The video at left teaches your students how to draw a dragon, step-by-step. See the other fun options below.