End Of Year Class Party Ideas For The Last Week Of School
End of year class party ideas on the brain? Summer vacation on the brain? Don’t worry- we have you covered with these 10 fun, engaging, easy-to-implement ideas that you and your students are sure to love! These fun ideas are also either completely free or have very little cost! These end of year parties are a great way to close down the school year in a fun way, while also appreciating your hard work throughout the school year. Your students will learn about their next grade level, reflect on the school year you all just had together, and have lots of fun with the different themed parties! Summer break is right around the corner!
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End Of Year Class Party Ideas #1: Board Games Day
Hosting a game day is simple and cost-effective. This end of year party requires very little of you as well. Students can bring in board games from home. Students can set up a spot in the room with their individual games and take turns playing different ones with different people. A game day is a great opportunity for students to work together. You can have a class vote to decide which game was their favorite. Another great idea is to invite students from a neighboring class to come join. If you have a buddy classroom, you could invite them as well!
Bringing in a board game was always my number one go-to for class rewards because it was free to me, but also they rarely get to play board games! Recesses were typically too short for a board game by the time the game was set up and they played. They don’t always have time to finish the game! Also, make sure to check out your local thrift store for board games for your classroom.
Some appropriate board games for your students might be:
- Don’t Break The Ice
- Yeti Spaghetti
- Uno
- Trouble
- Chutes and Ladders
- Connect 4
- Kerplunk!
- Headbanz
- Candy Land
- Operation
In addition to students bringing board games, a different alternative would to be use one of our bingo games to continue learning! You can continue to review clocks and telling time with our Time Bingo. You can continue to build and strengthen number sense with our Number Sense Bingo. Or you can review and practice nonfiction text features with our Nonfiction Text Feature Bingo.
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #2: Moving Up Party
Another end of year celebration is a “Moving Up Day”. This day is all about “moving on up” to the next grade level. You can create a photo booth so students can take a picture celebrating their new grade level. Then, it’s time to interview the next grade level to find out what it’s all about! Set up a “meeting” with a teacher in the next grade level so students can interview a student.
Some suggestions for questions to ask the upcoming grade level students:
- What was your favorite thing you did this school year?
- Where did you go on your field trip?
- How many recesses do you have?
- What was your favorite game you played in PE?
- What was your favorite book your teacher read?
- What was the hardest thing you learned this school year?
- When was lunch?
- What did you play at recess?
If you don’t want to create your own interview questions, don’t worry! We have resources for that for grades kindergarten, first grade, second grade, and third grade!
Our end of year interview packs are great for this fun party day. They include:
- interview directions
- letter to send to the next grade level class
- reader’s theater for students to practice
- anchor charts
- interview resources to interview a friend (to practice for interviewing the next grade level student)
- interview resources to interview the next grade level student
Grab them on TPT:
Grab them on Missing Tooth Grins:
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #3: Fort Party
Students bring in blankets for this party and for extra fun, let them bring in stuffed animals and flashlights and wear pajamas. Together, you can use teamwork as a class to create forts around the classroom. Let them move furniture around to make this happen. Then, they can read in their fort with their flashlights.
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #4: Community Service Day
Community Service Day is all about serving the school. It’s been your students’ home away from home for 9 months and now it’s time to give back. These are all great ideas for the last week of school.
Here’s some different ideas of how to host a Community Service Day:
- Write thank you notes to secretaries, lunch crew, custodians, specials teachers, etc.
- Read books to younger students
- Write encouraging messages with sidewalk chalk on the playground or on the sidewalk to enter the school
- Clean up trash on the playground and around the outside of the school
- Take down bulletin boards for other teachers
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #5: Ice Cream Party
For Ice Cream Party day, make it simple. Buy ice cream sandwiches and toppings. Students can create their own sundaes on their ice cream sandwich. This is so much better than you scooping ice cream for each student!
What you’ll need for ice cream sandwich sundaes:
- ice cream sandwiches
- whipped cream
- cherries
- sprinkles
- chocolate syrup
- paper plates or bowls
- plastic spoons
I got this idea from my friend Stephanie at Falling Into First! It’s so much easier than scooping out ice cream and making a mess. Plus, your students will love this simple ice cream sundae alternative! If you can, ask parents to volunteer to bring this stuff in.
In addition to eating ice cream, make sure you reflect on the school year with our fun ice cream cone craft. This ice cream cone craft is a great alternative to a memory book to reflect on the school year. It also makes fun a fun end of year bulletin board.
The prompts included on each ice cream scoop are:
- My Favorite Part Of The Year
- Our Field Trip
- My Favorite Lunch
- My Friends
- My Favorite Subject
- My Teacher
- My Favorite Book
- About Me
- Also includes: First, Next, Then, Last to create a sequencing story instead
Grab it here on Missing Tooth Grins
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #6: Out Of This World Space Party
This year was out of this world! You can buy those cheap glow-in-the-dark stars and glow sticks from the dollar store, have students bring in flashlights, and read in the dark! Your students can blast off to the next grade level with this fun party idea! One idea is to create STEM buckets for students to create different space themed objects, like a rocket. Another idea is to look up different constellations and try to draw them and even come up with your own constellations!
If you can, find some space-themed books to read on this day! Here’s some space-themed book suggestions:
- Pete The Cat: Out Of This World
- There’s No Place Like Space: All About Our Solar System
- Little Kids First Big Book Of Space
- There Was A Black Hole That Swallowed The Universe
- Moon! Earth’s Best Friend
- Luna Muna
- The Magic School Bus: Lost In The Solar System
- National Geographic Kids: Everything Space
- National Geographic Kids: Planets
- Constellations For Kids
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #7: Beach Day
Who doesn’t love a beach-themed party? Purchase some cheap beach balls from the dollar store and have students bring in their beach towels from home. Your students can read and do their work on their beach towels. Create a classroom scavenger hunt and create a summer bucket list! Have students design the ultimate sandcastle and then build it with blocks or legos! Bring in hula hoops and have a hula hoop contest outside! This is a great way to get ready for those hot summer months and end the year on a high note!
Make sure to pull out some ocean and beach themed books for this fun end of year party! Some suggestions are:
- Commotion In The Ocean
- First Big Book Of Ocean
- Pete The Cat Scuba Cat
- Shark Lady: The True Story Of How Eugenie Clark Became The Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist
- The Pout Pout Fish
- Rainbow Fish
- National Geographic Readers: Coral Reefs
- Pete The Cat At The Beach
- Biscuit’s First Beach Day
- National Geographic Kids: At The Beach
- What Lives In A Shell
- The Sandcastle That Lola Built
- Hark A Shark: All About Sharks
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #8: Classroom Awards Day
Roll out the red carpet! Let’s host some classroom awards to celebrate all of our academic achievement through the end of the school year. What better way to celebrate the end of the year than by handing out fun classroom awards that your whole class will love? End of year awards has always been a favorite activity for me and my students. It’s fun to comb through all the different awards and try to pick the one that is perfect for each student.
Some different award ideas are:
- class leader
- science superstar
- marvelous mathematician
- fantastic friend
- terrific teammate
Don’t want to create your own? Don’t worry- we have space-themed classroom awards done for you!
Click here for your end of year classroom awards.
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #9: Memory Books
Another end of school year favorite is to create memory books. These memory books are a perfect way to reflect on the school year and all the different activities you did as a class. To go a step further, you can write a special note inside that your students will cherish forever!
In addition to memory books, I also like to have my class write letters to the upcoming class of students. I give directions to have students write some of their favorite memories from the school year to get the future students excited about the school year. I usually leave these out on back to school night for students to read with their caretakers so they can look forward to all the fun activities to come!
Some different memories to include in the memory book are:
- field trip
- field day
- favorite special class
- your classmates
- your teacher
- all about my classroom
- all about my school
- my favorite moments
- my favorite lunch
Our space-themed is the perfect addition to your last few weeks of school plans! There are 21 pages for students to write about. This memory book is a wonderful way to remember the school year.
Click here to see the memory book.
End Of Year Class Party Ideas #10: Classroom End Of The Year Slideshow
During the last weeks of school, I always love to show a classroom slideshow to my class. Websites like Canva have made this much easier throughout the years, but it’s definitely worth it. It always makes me a little tear-eyed too! It’s so fun to reflect on our favorite memories at the end of the year.
To set up an end of the year slideshow in Canva, you’ll need a free account. Then, you will create a Presentation. Once inside the Presentation, you can add a photo to each slide. At the bottom, you’ll see you can change the duration between each photo. It is set on 5 seconds, but you can change it to more or less time. You can also add music from what’s available on Canva! This is a simple, free way to create an end of year slideshow for your class. Plus, you can email it out to your students’ caretakers to view at home as well.
Do you plan to use any of these ideas during the last days of school? These end of year class party ideas should come in handy when trying to plan the end of year! Plus, they are a great way to welcome summer! Comment below and let me know!
For more end of year ideas, make sure to check out these blog posts:
