As we wind down another school year, it’s time to start thinking about those end of year celebrations. What do you have in store for the last few weeks of school? You can leave students buzzing with excitement and make memories they can carry with them into summer and beyond.
This year, you can shake things up with a techy twist on classic ways to wrap up the school year with these end of year celebration ideas!
9 Tech-Infused End of Year Celebration Ideas
Virtual Field Trip Extravaganza
As a classroom teacher, I loved taking students on field trips, but it’s not always feasible.
You can use tools like Google Arts & Culture or curated YouTube playlists to take your students on a virtual adventure. For this end of year celebration, invite students to explore a rainforest, dive into a coral reef, or even journey into space. Here are a few blog posts with virtual field trip ideas:
- 9 Spring Virtual Field Trips
- 12 Websites for Summer Virtual Field Trips
- 10 Virtual Reality Field Trips for Earth Day
Classroom Awards
A popular end of year celebration is a classroom awards ceremony. Whether you create silly awards or have students vote on different categories, you can find ready-to-customize templates for free. Graphic design tools like Canva have options for creating digital certificates for students. If you are a member of my Easy EdTech Club, you might be familiar with the certificates I give out each month—I made them with Canva, too!
AI-Powered Field Day
Earlier this year on the blog, I shared Activ8 and how you can use their box of sports and game equipment alongside an AI-powered app called PLAI. The app gives teachers ideas for different games and activities that keep kids moving. You might use the app to figure out a game to play as part of an end of year celebration.
Summer Suggestions
Ask each student to post a suggestion for a book to read, a movie to watch, or a podcast to listen to this summer. You can create a Padlet page where kids can add their summer suggestions. Then students and families can explore the list over the course of the summer time.
Wrap Up Podcast
Help students reflect on their year by creating podcast episodes together! Students can discuss favorite memories on a solo episode or interview each other. Tools like Soundtrap make it easy to record and publish, but they can even use the recording tools in a familiar space like Seesaw.
Digital Memory Book
Regular readers of the blog know that I’m a super fan of Book Creator. You might decide to use this tool to create a digital memory book as a way to celebrate the end of the year. Let students each take a page to build personalized memory books filled with photos, videos, and reflections on their favorite school year moments.
End of Year Slideshow
Whether you use Google Slides or another favorite presentation tool, you can have students gather pictures and create slides to celebrate the year. Once each student has made a slide, you can compile them into a collaborative slideshow. You might even add music to play in the background while you watch together.
Virtual Time Capsule
Although I love the videos of people opening up time capsules at a town’s historical society, you might want to take a digital spin on this idea. Students can gather digital artifacts, like pieces of work or videos they’ve made, to create a virtual time capsule. They can put everything in Google Drive or Dropbox and set a future date to open it for a nostalgic blast from the past.
Advice Collection
Similar to collecting suggestions for the summertime, you might ask students to film or write advice for the incoming class. They can offer tips on the best way to study new material, something the new students have to look forward to, or another useful piece of advice.
