It’s the last week of term, and classrooms across the country will be succumbing to the condition that teachers commonly know as ‘end-of-term-itis’, and it certainly is infectious. Teachers everywhere will be patiently waiting for a well-deserved summer holiday where they can put their feet up, relax, and celebrate the previous year of teaching.
With one week to go, many teachers are likely to be finishing up the last areas of the curriculum, but left wondering… ‘what do I do with the children now?’ Let’s look at a few ideas for keeping your class engaged for the remaining days with activities they will genuinely benefit from, rather than just a time waster.
Let’s jump right in….
1. Brushing up on any content
This one doesn’t sound amazingly appealing with five days to go until the Summer, when the last thing you want to do is go over things you have already taught. But we do what we do for the good of the pupils!
Think back through the previous year… was there a topic that came up in tests that majority of the children just did not get? It may benefit them massively to briefly revisit and clarify these topics so they can hit the ground running in their next school year.
1.5. Encourage peer-to-peer teaching
This one is a variation of the first idea but with a bit of a twist. Have you ever heard that the best way to learn something is to teach it to someone else? That’s what this idea is all about.
Split the children into groups and assign each group a topic you taught this year. They then have to teach this topic to the rest of the class. This is a win-win; you can sit back a little while the children teach, and the children will gain in-depth knowledge of topics you have taught while revisiting many topics from the year. You can be quite strategic in how you assign your groups, assigning those pupils with gaps in their knowledge the topics they didn’t quite get the first time.
2. Have some fun with a class quiz!
You could tailor this however you want. It could be a roundup of everything the children have learnt this academic year to consolidate their learning. Alternatively, you could create a quiz with more of a social, team-building focus. For instance, you could secretly ask each pupil to give you a fact the rest of the class don’t know about them, collect all answers and create a quiz where the class has to guess who each fact is about!
This is something you could create yourself or you could use online resources like Kahoot! to help you out. It will be a lot of fun and your pupils might find out things they never knew they had in common!
3. Let them be creative
Now that the year’s learning is complete and children are beginning to wind down for the holidays, why not reward pupils for their efforts over the year by getting a bit creative in the classroom?
This could be done by setting up a few crafts stations in the classroom and letting the children decide what they would like to explore. Some ideas of stations could be:
Origami
Clay moulding
Mindful colouring
Mask making
Jewellery making
Of course, the stations you choose would need to be adapted to your age group - the ideas listed will not work for all year groups. You know your class best, so use this knowledge to your advantage!
4. Create an escape room
What adult doesn’t love an escape room? They require critical thinking, team work, perseverance and a growth mindset, all qualities that will help children with their school life too. Why not build these brain muscles and turn your classroom into an escape room! Pupils could work in pairs, in small groups or as a whole class to solve clues and complete puzzles to escape the classroom!
This will take some prep and resourcing to create, but the children will absolutely love it. Again, you could make it educational, as with the previous ideas by adding curriculum content, or make it completely your own. Either way, the pupils are sure to love it. If you need help coming up with ideas there are some great ‘class escape room’ ideas on the web.
You can utilise any of these ideas to keep your class engaged with learning through the final week of term. These ideas will get the pupils thinking and create lasting memories along the way!
Have a great holiday and we’ll see you back in September with all the latest jobs and working opportunities.
