It’s been my experience that students start to check out far before the final bell rings. I remember having a student ask me one year, “I thought we were just going to be watching movies this week.” as I started a regular lesson on the Monday of the last week of school. With the end of the year approaching, I wanted to share what I do during the last week of school to make the most out of the remaining time with my students while also having fun! I hope that this will help you with your own planning. From taking time to reflect to preparing for the next year to come, these are my activities of choice to help you keep your middle school ELA students engaged during the last week of school.

MONDAY

I like to spend the first two days of the final week giving students the opportunity to reflect on both their personal and academic growth using two activities. I start the week off on Monday with an activity called Passport Stations that allows students to reflect on the content and skills that they learned in the course

For this activity, students are given a blank passport template. I tell them that, in order to complete the course, they must get the following 4 stamps on their personal passports:

1. The comic strip stamp
2. The new terms stamp
3. The brochure stamp
4. The reflection stamp

The reflection continues into Tuesday with students now reflecting more on the personal memories that they created throughout the year. I give students templates, so they can create an end-of-the-year memory booklet.  This gives students the opportunity to capture their best moments, the personal connections that have impacted them, their favorite movies, music, books, etc., as well as reflect on how they have changed.

The conversations in class during this assignment are always so meaningful as they highlight the growth, connections, and memories that students made throughout the year. Sometimes students may need a bit more time to complete this, so I do ask them to complete it after class, and I make time on the last day of the week for students to share their reflections with their peers. This also isn’t something I grade and is meant more as a fun activity that provides a great keepsake to look back on in later years.

COURSE AND SELF-EVALUATIONS

After students have completed the letter, it’s time to make room for you, the teacher, to also reflect on your own practice. As mentioned above, the last week of the school year is the perfect time to engage students in self-reflection that will help students develop from, and beyond, your class. However, what your students say can be just as useful to your own development as it is to theirs, especially if you ask the right questions. I get students to evaluate their own efforts in the course and then I get them to give me feedback on my instruction and the course material. For this, I provide two types of evaluation handouts:

1. SELF-EVALUATION

The first evaluation prompts them to reflect on their personal development in your class. These are questions like…

Thursday

Thursday is all about collaboration! During the last week of middle school ELA, students tend to be lacking in motivation. What better way to rekindle their energy than with a little bit of hot lava? Collaborative activities like the classroom floor is lava are great at keeping students engaged at the end of the year by getting them up and moving around the classroom.

With the classroom floor is lava escape room activity, students imagine that the classroom is filling up with lava, and they must move around different stations in the room to solve puzzles and challenges to escape to the roof! If it works for your particular students, you can allow them not to touch the floor between the stations except for designated “lava free” spots.

I even like to incorporate ELA skills into the puzzles and challenges in my collaborative activities so that students are still developing these skills, even while they’re bonding and having some last-week-of-school fun with their classroom community!  Another popular collaborative activity that teachers love using during the last week of school is my zombie teacher escape room where they must save their teacher who has been transformed into a zombie.

Friday

It’s time to celebrate! The last day is the perfect time to give recognition where it’s due and to celebrate just how far everyone has come. What better way to do this than by hosting an awards ceremony? Whether you do it Oscar style or choose to keep it simple, an award ceremony is a great way to make your students smile at the end of the year. You can even incorporate ELA-themed awards (i.e. alliteration awards, idiom awards, metaphor awards) to keep it on topic!

Here’s a list of the end-of-the-year awards that I like to use to celebrate student successes:

• Most Likely to Awards
• Famous People Awards
• Alliteration Awards 
• Idiom Awards
• Hashtag Awards
• Metaphor Awards
• Most Likely to Awards (Vol. 2)
• Pun Awards
• Animal Awards
• Food Awards

Another way that you can celebrate your middle school ELA students during the last week of the year is by giving each of them a personalized card. You might also give your students this free writing gift, or a bookmark with a quote on it from a novel you’ve read in class, like these ones for Wonder and Freak the Mighty (both also free!). A small gift goes a long way, and you don’t have to break the bank. It’s really the thought that counts here.

 

There you have it! I hope that the last week of school in your middle school ELA classrooms ends on a high note! You can grab ready-to-use resources mentioned in this post by clicking the images below!