It’s the end of the year, and your students are constantly asking how many days are left in school. Some students are excited, and others are anxious. Either way, organizing an end-of-the-year countdown can be the perfect positive way to close out the school year.
There are a few things to consider when creating your countdown:
duration, format, and activities. Let’s take a look at all three.
Duration
How long should your countdown be? This decision really depends on your class and their needs. I almost always opt for just 10 days. In the past, I felt that most of my classes would have suffered from behavioral or emotional issues if I had started any sooner. Some teachers prefer to do the same number of days as they have students (i.e., 23 if you have 23 students). This allows them to honor one student each day along with the activity. Another very popular length for a countdown is 26 days. Teachers do what’s called an “ABC Countdown” and need one day set aside for every letter of the alphabet.
Format
I don’t know about you, but I HATE the sound of balloons popping. So, I have never been the kind of teacher to place my countdown activities inside of balloons. Instead, I have used envelopes, Easter eggs, and just my whiteboard! Yes, that’s right, you DON’T have to be fancy to have a great countdown. When I used my whiteboard, I literally just wrote the day’s activity on the board before students came in each morning. Students would run to the board and read our activity first thing. I also found that placing the activities in Easter eggs made it fun for students to open. This year, I tried placing the activity slips in envelopes. I hid each envelope around the room and the VIPs had to find it and read the activity to us. This one was a hit!
Activities
Now, there are SO many directions you can go with a countdown. Many teachers like to go big every day of their countdown. I prefer to have small activities or surprises until the very last week of school. This way, students are enjoying the surprises, but we still have time for everything that needs to get done and behaviors are kept to a minimum. Some smaller activities I like to do are:
- Nickname Day: Each student gets to go by a new name of their choosing for the day.
- Sweet Treat: I bring in a treat for them to enjoy.
- No Pencils Day: They LOVE this one. They can choose to write with anything they want that day and aren’t confined to pencils only.
- Sticker Day: Students can earn stickers for positive choices.
- Extra Recess
- Hat Day
- Arts and Crafts Project
- Special Guest/Guest Reader
Some larger activities I save for the last week are:
In addition to an activity each day, I pick 2 or 3 “VIPs” a day. I simply pick a few students each day that get special supplies to use and a small treat to enjoy. I ask these students a few fun questions in front of the class and they read out the surprise for the day, too. EVERY student gets an opportunity to be a VIP.
I hope that these ideas start helping you plan your own countdown to summer! I know that your students will enjoy whatever you come up with.
What other fun activities would you add to this list? Let me know in the comments below!
