Exciting, engaging ideas to end the school year

As the 2023-2024 school year comes to an end for many districts around the US and Canada, we wanted to remind you of some fun and engaging activities to keep your students motivated to get you through the final countdown!

Whether you have used Book Creator throughout the entire year, or you’re just beginning your Book Creator journey, have no fear, as the activities that I’m about to share with you are infused with creativity to keep your students engaged in independent learning as you wrap up the final days before summer vacation.

See also: End of Year best practices for Teachers and Admins

Activity Journals

Our May Activity Journal is out now - the latest instalment of our monthly activity books that not only teach students about some amazing national holidays, but also allows students to use the accessibility features and creative tools that make Book Creator a go-to educational resource.

There are hundreds of activities in these books - so even if you've missed the previous ones, you could still go back and remix them! Here's the full library - take what you need and give your students some engaging, independent activities to try out throughout the rest of the year and into summer. Also, be sure to be on the lookout each month, as we will be sharing them throughout the rest of the calendar year!

Don't forget you can also translate these into multiple languages now too!

Yearbooks

Yearbooks are popular this time of year, but sure are an expensive industry!  If you'd prefer to go with an excellent (and free!) hack then use Book Creator to create a digital yearbook instead.

What makes a Book Creator yearbook even more special is that it can be collaborative so that each student, or even class, is able to add in their own information and pages that can then be shared out with family and friends with one quick published link! Check out these yearbook examples for some more ideas.

Summer Reading Journal

We are so excited to offer an independent reading journal for students this summer. As you'll know, keeping students engaged in reading and writing, even once per week over the summer months, drastically decreases the amount of “summer slide,” or learning loss, that takes place.

Research conducted by Harvard professor Jimmy Kim shows that, "Similar to prior research on summer learning… I found that the volume of summer book reading was positively related to Fall reading achievement independent of prior reading and writing skills and student background characteristics…. The benefits of reading books during summer vacation were also consistent for all ethnic groups. In particular, reading four to five books had significantly larger effects than reading three or fewer books." (2004)

What does this mean? The more you read over the summer, the better your reading achievement will be in the Fall. Furthermore, this statistic is true across all ethnic groups and socio-economic statuses.

Read more: Jump, slide & dive into an adventure this summer with Book Creator!

Reflection

Another popular end-of-year project is the school year reflection. Have students reflect on the past year. What was successful? What wasn’t? What was their favorite subject and why? Make sure they make use of audio and video for reflection as well as just text. Below are a couple of examples of ways to have your students reflect on the past year, and the year to come (these are remixable templates).

Goals for next year

As the year is winding down and students are reflecting on their learning and growth throughout the year, it is important to leave “legacies” or things for future students to know about their classroom, teacher, or grade. Using Book Creator, students can write letters to future students or even write a letter to their future self.

They can even create digital portfolios of the awesome projects and learning experiences that helped make their year so great! Using an editable template, such as this one, can help kickstart this awesome end-of-year project!