4 Activities to Celebrate the End of the Year with Distance Learning

This past school year ended during distance learning. While I planned these activities specifically for distance learning, I realize that you could also do these activities in the classroom as well. The only difference? Doing them on Zoom vs. in person.

My last week of school was a four day week. I decided to plan a Zoom everyday and wanted each day to be special. I sent out a survey to see what students and families were interested in doing for the last week of school. On one of the feedback forms, one of my Kindergarten students said that he “wanted to celebrate our love of school”. This student perfectly summed up what I wanted to do for our last week, especially since we were not able to celebrate in person. 

1. Talent Show

Whether it is performing a talent in front of the entire school, or participating as an audience, the spring Talent Show is usually a big event that all students and staff members look forward to. Since our whole school Talent Show was cancelled, I decided to have a class Talent Show instead. Each student could either send in a video of their talent or perform their talent live on Zoom. Everyone had a 2 minute time limit. It was completely optional to participate, but out of 19 students, 15 students performed. Our Talent Show was 30 minutes long in the end.

The Talent Show is something that I will continue to do as an end of year activity. Performing in a whole school Talent Show on stage can be kind of scary and intimidating, but performing in front of your class is a very different experience. I would continue to do the same format as well, because when you compile the videos into a google slideshow, you can send out the link to families, so it is also a keepsake for everyone to have. 

2. End of Year Memory Slideshow

Every year I compile all of the pictures that I have taken throughout the year to create an End of Year Memory Slideshow. This past year, I made sure to also take short video clips as well. That way there was a mix between pictures and videos for the Memory Slideshow. If you have a MacBook, you can make a slideshow video straight from Photos. You can add music to the slideshow as well as change the way that the pictures and video clips cycle through during the video. If you want to make it a little fancier, you can always opt to use iMovie. This year’s Memory Slideshow was 45 minutes long. Since I knew it was long, half way through we had a stretch and dance break and then we talked about what some of our favorite memories were before continuing with the second part of the video. 

If I did this in the classroom, I would probably break it up and watch the video over the entire week. If you upload the video to Google Drive, then you can send the link out to families and they can watch it at home. Once again, it’s another great keepsake for everyone to have.

3. Jeopardy

I used the format of Jeopardy as a fun way for us to reflect and reminisce about the school year. I chose six categories for the Jeopardy game board and came up with 5 questions for each category. I also decided to make the questions multiple choice since I teach Kindergarten. The students came to the Zoom meeting beforehand with letter cards A, B, C, and D, so all they had to do was hold up the card when they knew the answer to the question. Each student kept track of their own points (but I didn’t really give much attention to how many points they earned). I thoroughly enjoyed playing Jeopardy with my class, because it’s a trivia game format and a different way to reflect on the school year with your students. I created Jeopardy in Google Slides and sent out the link to families to have as another memory keepsake of Kindergarten.

4. End of Year Award Ceremony

Every year, I always like to have an Award Ceremony during the last week of school. I’ve done specialized awards, candy awards, and also general certificates. This year, I chose to make Kindergarten certificates for each student. Doing the Award Ceremony over Zoom this year was really no different from past year. I created an Award Ceremony Slideshow on Google Slides, and before presenting each student with their certificate, I made sure to say a few things about what makes that student special and unique. I also sent the link out to families, so they could have the option of printing out their child’s certificate.

How did you end your year through distance learning?