Virtual Year End Celebrations

The end of this school year isn’t going to look like most others!  We teachers have shown we can be flexible and adapt at the drop of a hat!  Now, how are our end of year celebrations going to look while teaching remotely? The typical field trip and school assembly just aren’t going to work.  I’ve come up with 6 ideas that are easy to implement, free or very low cost, and totally fun!

Virtual Spirit Days

Assign a fun theme to each day leading up to the last day of school.  Every time your class hops online to meet virtually, you’ll be able to share in the fun together.  Some simple ideas include:

• Jersey Day
• Wacky Hair Day (or Wacky Hat Day)
• Inside Out Day (or Backwards Day)
• Work from Home Day (Could go either way… wear your best outfit, or your pj’s!)
• Zoom Wear Day (Professional up top, pj’s on the bottom!)
• School Colours Day

Virtual Class Party

Decorate your room before the event with balloons and streamers.  You can even ask students to do the same.  If you’re able to do package pickups or drop-offs, you could prepare a little treat bag for students or get a paper hat ready for each one.  While waiting for all students to arrive to the party, play some fun upbeat music.  (Make sure to share from your computer speakers for the best sound.)  Not sure what to do for the actual party entertainment? Maybe you have a friend who can do some magic tricks? Maybe a special guest hops on to read a favourite class story? Perhaps you play some games?  This post has lots of game ideas for you to try out!

Digital Scrapbook

Celebrate and remember all of the good times your class had together throughout the year by creating a digital scrapbook.  You can create a page for each event, or for each month.  If you wanted, you could send out a list of questions for students to complete and add their thoughts to each page.  My personal favourite app for doing this is Project Life by Becky Higgins.  The app is free and comes with lots of pre-designed templates and artwork, but you can buy add-ons as well if you wish.  Here’s a super simple page I created to remember our science fair projects:

Create a Movie

If you’re more techy, you could create a movie to remember the year.  My favourite program for this is iMovie, but it’s only for Apple devices unfortunately.  If you’re new to the program, I find the iPad version easier to use than the laptop/desktop version.  You could put your photos to class favourite songs or even ask kiddos to send in a video message of their favourite moments and splice all of those together.

Recruit Others

Recruit your administration, educational assistants, or other members of the school community to help acknowledge student successes of the year.  Film their words of encouragement and praise for students.  Combine this with the idea above, and you’ve got one special keepsake!

End of Year Reflections

I’ve mentioned this a little bit above, but if you’re wanting a more structured way to have students reflect, I’ve got the perfect one-pager for you.  I’ve also made it into a Google Slides version, so you can share it with your students in the format that works best for you.  You can get your own copy for free, as well as a teacher reflection tool for yourself, by clicking either the image or button below.

Want more ideas? This post on year end celebrations has some great ideas that you could adapt for virtual use as well!

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