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  • 100 Ideas for Awesome Academic Work in the Last Weeks of School

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100 Ideas for Awesome Academic Work in the Last Weeks of School

  • By Mike Anderson
  • In Blog, Great Academic Work, Mike's Blog, Motivation, Student Choice, Teaching Strategies, The Ebb and Flow of the School Year

Don’t look now, but the end of the school year isn’t far away. Of course, we know how important the first weeks of school are, but what about the last weeks of school? Surely, this is just as important a transition time for students. What if we were as thoughtful and intentional about the last weeks of school as we are the first ones?

That’s just the challenge educators from across the North Country of New Hampshire are tackling. Sponsored by North Country Education Services, I have been helping K-12 educators think deeply about how to make the end of the school year as great as possible. We’re considering how to support a strong sense of community, be consistent with discipline, and also make sure academics are awesome. This blog post will summarize some of the ideas they came up with during a series of discussions on March 17.

The goal was to generate tons of ideas for academic work that will be engaging enough to hold students’ attention as the weather warms and the year wanes.

The Connection Between Emotion and Learning

We started by acknowledging the important connections between emotion and cognition. Students who are bored, dispirited, anxious, lonely, or angry won’t be available for learning. So, we considered two questions. 1. How do we want the academic work in the last weeks of school to feel? 2. How do we want students to feel about themselves as learners in the last weeks of school? Here are some of the ideas we came up with:

End-of-Year Academics Should Feel…

relevant, achievable, fun, accessible, appropriately challenging, curiosity-provoking, reflective, engaging, collaborative, enjoyable, inspiring, manageable, meaningful, memorable, motivating, open-ended, positive, exciting, rewarding, surprising, and valuable

To Help Students Feel…

successful, engaged, accomplished, belonging, capable, safe, celebrated, confident, curious, empowered, energized, happy, involved, motivated, heard, ownership, prepared, and proud

100 Ideas for Awesome Academic Work

Next, we generated tons of ideas for academic work that could elicit these desired emotions. Participants in the group have a variety of roles: classroom teachers, paraeducators, special educators, administrators, special areas teachers, and more. Some teach in schools that have been fully in-person for the whole year while others are teaching remotely. Some work with high school seniors and others work with kindergarteners. Our goal wasn’t to find one academic task that would work for everyone but to come up with a variety of diverse and interesting ideas that could inspire all of us.

So, with that in mind, check out the following ideas and look for ones you might use or adapt. Think about how you want academics to feel for your students. Think about how you want your students to feel about themselves academically in the last weeks of school. Then, scan the list and look for ones that might work given the time, resources, curricular content, and school logistics/protocols that work for you and your students.

Air pump rockets

All school thematic unit/project

Animal research projects

Author study

Bitmoji classroom

Book reviews

Bottle rockets

Building 3-D shape models

Building project (like a bench) that will get left on campus

Citizen Science

Class bulletin board–accomplishments/learning

Class plays—student written

Class quilt

Classroom performances

Comic books about content

Community celebrations aligned with schoolwork

Community garden

Cook breakfast together to practice measurement skills/teamwork/communication

Coordinate geometry connect-the-dot puzzles

Create a board game based on a unit studied

Create a commercial for a product you’ve made (engineering)

Create map of something in the community

Cover walls with paper and students decorate graffiti-style with learning from the year

Create hallway displays of content/learning from the year

Create a map based on their favorite book of the year

Create terrariums–with bugs/toads/etc. from around the school

Create a book/anthology of writing/math challenges/etc.

Design an amusement park ride

Design a road trip

Display work in windows to community

Egg drop challenge

Expert media projects

Farm to table family breakfast (make butter, jelly, bread)

Field studies

Fraction pizza party

Gardening project

Genius hour

Get outside take a walk to local landmarks

Guest readers

Have students list their strengths and prepare to share with next year’s teachers

Interactive theater

Invite community people in (police, fire, fish and game, postmaster, etc.)

Jeopardy game–kids make the questions from content from throughout the year

Jigsaw learning project — students get to choose how to present what they learned

Kahoot – teacher or student created

Kid-created yearbook

Kids create Kahn Academy-style videos of skills they’ve learned

Learn all about bubbles

Letters to future selves: what I accomplished this year…

List of positive things about each student written by other students

Make children’s books to share with younger grades

Make a movie

Make T-shirts about content that they could take with them – sign them

Memory book

More class time outside

Nature journaling

Nature walk

News video about learning

Open-genre writing workshop

Outdoor scavenger hunt

Passion Project tied to standards

Pen pal or collaborate with another school

Personal narratives, end of year, reflection

Physics Circus! (simple machines, magnets, etc.)

Plant seeds for kids to take home

Poetry slam

Portfolio created for each subject — compiled projects/assignments students are proud of

Positive strategies book

Probability games

Raising creatures in school…chicks, butterflies, dragonflies, etc.

Readers’ theatre

Remote field day

Robotics

Science fair exhibits (inventions)

Service projects – planting flowers at nursing homes or on the school grounds

Projects that involve students’ different strengths and interests

Simulations

Social studies reenactment video

STEAM activities

Step-up days

Story of this year to share with next year class

Student created workbook for future students

Students design bulletin boards on a subject

Students create labeled murals on a topic

Students share their hobbies or collections through writing

Students teach some lessons

Students write strengths and positive about all classmates—collect and share

Stop animation

Talent night/lip sync/performance outdoors…socially distanced

Tap trees, make syrup

Teaming up with different age levels

Time capsules

Virtual field trips

Write autobiographies

Write fictional stories incorporating science/social studies content

Write letters to younger students summing up what to expect

Write letters to future selves

Use sidewalk chalk to decorate sidewalks with memories, etc.

Use different mediums to practice spelling words (shaving cream, watercolors)

3-D shapes museum (students bring in objects from home and sort by shape)

  • Mike Anderson

    Mike Anderson has been an educator for more than 25 years. A public school teacher for 15 years, he has also taught preschool, coached swim teams, and taught university graduate level classes. He now works as a consultant providing professional learning for teachers throughout the US and beyond. In 2004, Mike was awarded a national Milken Educator Award, and in 2005 he was a finalist for NH Teacher of the Year. In 2020, he was awarded the Outstanding Educational Leader Award by NHASCD for his work as a consultant. A best-selling author, Mike has written nine books about great teaching and learning. His latest book is Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems. When not working, Mike can be found hanging with his family, tending his perennial gardens, and searching for new running routes around his home in Durham, NH.

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Mike Anderson
Mike Anderson has been an educator for more than 25 years. A public school teacher for 15 years, he has also taught preschool, coached swim teams, and taught university graduate level classes. He now works as a consultant providing professional learning for teachers throughout the US and beyond. In 2004, Mike was awarded a national Milken Educator Award, and in 2005 he was a finalist for NH Teacher of the Year. In 2020, he was awarded the Outstanding Educational Leader Award by NHASCD for his work as a consultant. A best-selling author, Mike has written nine books about great teaching and learning. His latest book is Tackling the Motivation Crisis: How to Activate Student Learning Without Behavior Charts, Pizza Parties, or Other Hard-to-Quit Incentive Systems. When not working, Mike can be found hanging with his family, tending his perennial gardens, and searching for new running routes around his home in Durham, NH.

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