These end of year activities are a surefire way to entertain students while having them practice the foundational reading and math skills they need to succeed next school year!
The end of the school year can be a hectic time for elementary students—from getting their grades to preparing for summer plans and attending end-of-school celebrations, it can be hard to get them to focus on anything instructional. These activities utilize fun, summer themes and more entertaining tasks like coloring to help keep the classroom productive and chill as the school year comes to an end.
End of Year Activities for Elementary Students
It’s important for students to carry the foundational skills they’ve learned over the course of the school year into the next grade, but it’s easy to forgo practice until the fall semester comes around! These activities will keep K-5th graders’ hands and minds occupied in these last few weeks of school, helping them close out the year with these concepts at the top of their mind.
End of Year Math Graphing Activities
We’re starting off this collection of fun end of year activities for students with themed math practice,perfect for first and second graders! In this end-of-school review, students are tasked with counting, graphing, and basic data analysis. From counting the bottles of sunscreen, flip flops, and beach balls in a picture and graphing the values to analyzing the results of a fictional “favorite summer trip” survey, this activity is a great way for young math learners to practice counting and logic skills.
You can even have your class replicate some of the activities with real examples in the classroom, such as taking a poll of your students’ favorite summer activities! Then go through the data as a class, helping them make logical analyses. However you choose to implement this activity, it’s a great way to capture their excitement for summer and channel it into math practice.
Created and made available for free download by First Grade Buddies.
Free Summer Math Mystery Pictures
Next up is a math mystery picture activity, with a selection of activities ranging through topics in elementary school math. From crabs to boats, these summer-y color-by-number images are achieved by students practicing certain foundational math skills. The first featured activity is for the youngest mathematicians, tasking them with numbering the squares in the graph from 1 to 100 and coloring based on the color key. The next activity does the same for 1-120.
For slightly older students, the third provided puzzle tasks students with multiplication to reveal the color key, and the final puzzle requires graphing skills to find the coordinate assigned to each color. If you’re struggling to keep kids attentive in class as the year winds down, a fun coloring activity like this is a great way to keep them engaged while keeping their math muscles strong.
Created and made available for free download by Mrs. Thompson’s Treasures.
End of the Year Memory Book
If you’re looking for meaningful things to do on the last day of school for your elementary classroom, consider an activity for students to reflect on the past year! Perfect for K-3rd, this end of year memory book is a hit for elementary school teachers looking for ways for students to stay productive after their grades have been completed. This resource comes with a page where students can write and draw their top five moments of the year, and a page for students to show off their top 5 summer plans.
Once students are done drafting their ideas, they’ll employ colored pencils and their best penmanship to write their top moments of the year and plans for the summer on decorative pages. Encourage them to use this as a time capsule by looking back in a year to see how things have changed! This is a great tool to help kids practice their writing and self-reflection abilities.
Created and made available for free download by GreatMinds123.
Math & Reading Review End of Year Activities
If you’re a 3rd-5th grade teacher looking for ELA and math activities to keep your kids productive while they’re buzzing with excitement for summer break, this next resource might be just what you’re looking for!
A few of the activities are unique color-by-code that has students uncovering mystery pictures through ELA & math practice. The first is an instructional reading comprehension passage they will have to answer questions about. Each answer choice is assigned a color, so a correctly-completed assignment will form the color key to correctly reveal the image!
Two other color-by-codes quiz students on their parts of speech and on their knowledge of decimal place value. Finally, the last ELA activity is a cut-and-paste figurative language review, tasking students to sort expressions into their respective type: simile or metaphor. This educational resource is as colorful as a rainbow, and it can be as fun for kids as recess if you play some music for them, too!
Created and made available for free download by Performing in Education
End of Year Middle & High School Activities
Older students need fun activities to close out the year, too! These resources will help middle and high school students solidify some of the many skills they’ve honed over the year, from reading comprehension and vocabulary to basic math and finance.
End-of-the-Year Multiplication Color-by-Number
A simple activity for older elementary and younger middle schoolers, this multiplication color-by-number is a relaxing way for students to decompress after something higher-stakes like a final quiz or project. WIth the use of your coloring tools of choice, students will solve simple multiplication problems and use the included color key to color in a picture of the seaside.
Created and made available for free download by Highs and Lows of a Teacher.
End of Year Class Compliments Activity
When it comes to high school and middle school activities for the last day before summer break, students will appreciate time dedicated to reflection on the past year. This compliments activity is a fantastic way to have them practice their writing abilities while improving their social skills.
The resource begins with a guide on “How to Give a Good Compliment” and a list of character traits that are meaningful to compliment. Go through these directions as a class—this will help the activity go smoothly while teaching students this important skill for their personal and professional future relationships. Then, on the included “letter paper”, have them write a compliment card for all of their classmates—and no one can read their compliments until they get home. By reaffirming the community you’ve built over the year, students will feel included and appreciated as the year ends and many say “goodbye” to their everyday social lives.
Created and made available for free download by Blair Turner.
School Year in Review Interactive Accordion Book
Looking to implement a different kind of guided reflection activity in the classroom? This school year in review accordion book is a fun way to have students consider the past year. What were the best things that happened in the classroom, or during an after school activity? What were some of the sticky situations they managed to overcome? What are their favorite books or foods at the moment? What are they looking forward to?
Then, after coloring the pages and writing all about their school year on the included reflection pages, they’ll glue them together along with some construction paper, following the included instructions. By the end, they’ll have an end of year reflection book to look back on over the summer and as they grow older!
Created and made available for free download by Brain Waves Instruction.
Vacation Planning End of Year Project
An activity that shows the real-life application of math skills, this end of year activity is a vacation budgeting project that’s very clearly applicable to their near future! This vacation planning project is perfect if you need something that’ll take students a couple of days to work on. The instructions are simple: have your students pretend they are your travel agents, and ask each of them to plan your trip to a city there.
They will make a slideshow to go over the itinerary and budget of the trip they plan. They will have to research and plan out the costs of transportation, lodging, and daily food and activities for this trip. The slideshow conclusion will include price breakdowns per day and a total cost. This project, perfect for any grade, is a great way for students to practice their skills in research, math, presentation, and even empathy. (At the end of the day, they’ll be planning a trip their teacher will enjoy. Let’s see how well they know you!)
Created and made available for free download by Kuchar’s Collections.
English & Math Practice For Schooltime and Summer Break
We hope these end of year activities have helped you flesh out your pre-break lesson plans! It can be hard to keep students attentive to classwork as the school year comes to an end, so we hope these resources gave your class a fun period of math and English practice.
If you’re thinking about your curriculum this fall and interested in digital learning help for your classroom, Piqosity can help! We offer full-length, online ELA and Math courses for grades 5-11 and test prep courses for the Digital SAT, the new 2025 ACT, and the ISEE. Each course includes detailed topic lessons, hundreds of questions, dozens of reading passages for ELA courses, and full-length practice tests, together with personalized practice software that identify student weaknesses and helps them study effectively.
The best part? You can try out all of Piqosity’s features with our free community account. Once you create a free Piqosity Educator account, you can create a mock Piqosity student account (and attach it to your Educator account) to see how our software works for teachers and tutors.
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- How to Use Piqosity Courses to Get Ahead this Summer
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