Creative Ways to Wrap Up the School Year

7 ways to end the school year with creativity and joy! 

As the end of the academic school year approaches, educators often find themselves thinking about ways to spark joy and promote creativity. End of the year activities are a great way to wrap up the year and finish strong. Your classroom community will love all of these artistic opportunities as they spend time reflecting on the year and all the ways they have learned and grown as scholars. 

1. Stained Glass Flower

This is a super exciting way to get kids using their creativity. These flowers can be used to decorate the room, as window art, as a bulletin board or as an end-of-year gift to take home to their families. To make these flowers you will want to take out your MARK 5 Die Cutting Machine and you will also need the Flowers #18 Die Cut. Start by cutting out enough flowers using white paper.  Then give one to each student and allow them to use watercolors to paint the flowers. Be sure to have the scholars use plenty of water. Next, allow the flowers to dry. To make the flowers translucent you can turn the painted flowers over and rub cooking oil over them, using a napkin or paper towel, until you see color come through and blot off the excess. Again you will want to let them dry. Lastly, wipe the back with a paper towel or napkin.

2. Crab Visor

Take time to create these adorable visors to use for a school field day, the last day of school or as part of their end of the year gift so they can use them all summer long. Use your MARK 5 Die Cutting Machine as well as the Plate Buddy-Crab Die Cut, the Visor #1 Die Cut, and also Elastic Straps to make these summer ready visors. Start this project by cutting out a visor for each student from red construction paper. Then you will also need to cut out the crab body parts from the same red construction paper. Next, attach the crab legs to the visor and glue on some wiggle eyes as shown in the picture. Lastly, you will connect the elastic strap to the ends of the visor so that students can wear them as a hat. 

3. Graduation Plates

This activity will be sure to get the students excited to share their growth and celebrate their school year with their classmates. Have your students start this project by decorating their paper plate to look like themselves. Make sure you provide paint, wiggle eyes and markers for them to make their self-portrait plates. Then you will need to make sure that you have created enough graduation caps for each student by using your MARK 5 Die Cutting Machine and the Graduation #2 Die Cut. You will also want to have hair prepared in the colors and sizes of your scholars. To make these strips of hair use the Strip Maker 1” Die Cut. Scholars can grab the strips and cut them to match their own hair length for their plates. To wrap up this activity, have students write something they are proud of, a goal they met or maybe what they enjoyed learning about the most this school year. Allow your class to share with one another and use this as a community building activity.  

                   

4. Libraries Rock Summer Bookmark

One thing to get students excited about in the summertime is reading. Many local libraries will have summer reading programs and activities that they provide to the community. These bookmarks are a great way to get students excited to visit their neighborhood library and get reading for the summer. To create these bookmarks start by getting out your MARK 5 Die Cutting Machine to cut out the Guitar-Electric DIe Cut as well as the Musical Notes Die Cut. Use construction paper to cut out rectangles that are about 2 ½” by 7”. Be sure to make enough of these to have at least one per student. Then have students glue the guitars and musical notes to their bookmarks. They can then add features and designs to them. Have students write the words Libraries Rock at the bottom of the bookmark. As students make their bookmarks you can be sharing with them about the summer reading programs and how they can go to the library throughout the summer to get books to read and continue on their learning journey. 

5. Super Summer of Books Packets

Another great way to promote summer reading is to help students create a way to keep track of all the amazing books they read over the summer. These little packets are something you can encourage students to use and even to bring back to you after the summer to showcase their hard work as readers after the summer.  You will need to once again use your MARK 5 Die Cutting Machine to cut out the  Super Hero Emblem #2 Die Cut. You will need to cut out about 20 of these emblems for each of your scholars. Cut them out using many different colors of construction paper. Punch a hole in the upper left hand corner of the emblem. Then let each child decorate a cover for their book. Then let them pick out 20 emblems for their book. Next, have scholars attach all of the emblems together with a metal binder ring. The final step is to have your students write their name on the front of their collection of emblems. Tell them that each time they read a book they can add the title to a new page and they can even give the book a rating using stars under the title of the book they read. 

6. Chalkboard Heart Plant Sticks

These sticks will be a great addition to classroom plants that you could send home with students to take care of over the summer months. This simple little extra creative step will give your scholars a chance to practice writing skills to showcase their handwriting at the end of the school year. To make these you will use your MARK 5 Die Cutting Machine to cut out Heart #11 Die Cut. Begin by cutting out two large hearts from chalkboard paper and one heart from cardboard. Next, you will place glue onto the end of a popsicle stick and stick it into the end of the heart. Then adhere the chalkboard hearts to each side of the cardboard. Lastly, have your students use chalk to write either their name or the plant’s name on the chalkboard heart. Then, ask them to stick it into the soil of the plant you’ll be sending home.

7. Parent Volunteer/Teacher Cactus Gift

At the end of the year it is a great chance to have students thank any adults who have helped or added to their growth during the school year. These cactus thank you’s are an adorable and creative way to thank these adults for helping them grow. You will use your MARK 5 Die Cutting Machine and the Cactuses #1 Die Cut to create these cards. You can use different shades of green construction paper to cut out the cactuses to get started. You can also use many different colors to cut out the flowers. Next, take different shades of brown construction paper to cut out the pots. Then have students glue the cactuses to the pots. They can then use markers to add details to the cactuses, flowers and pots. After this, have them glue the flowers to the cactuses. The last step is to ask scholars to use markers to write a message to these helpful adults on each of the pots they have created. 

All of these projects will give you a chance to talk about all of the amazing effort and growth that the scholars have made throughout the year while also allowing them to utilize their creativity and unique way of expressing themselves. Ending the year with fun projects that bring smiles to students’ faces is a perfect way to celebrate all the hard work and growth from the past nine months!

Written by Amy Pinegar.