Fun end of year activities for middle school

[ellenalesa]

Our school year goes til June 26. They don't have a field day or anything like that, so generally the kids watch movies while the teachers pack up the room. If I don't come up with something else, I'll be doing the same thing. Any suggestions? I am leaving the district (I was a maternity leave replacement and the teacher is coming back) so I want the kids to have nice memories of me.

Thanks.

Ellen

 

[sbslab]

board games?

How about a board game marathon? Ask the students to bring in games from home to use.

 

[bookgeek59]

-board games
-have them write letters to incoming 6th graders with a "top 10" of advice for middle school survival- I call these "locker letters" because I tape them into lockers for 6th graders to find on their first day of school
-Scrabble or Boggle championship
-get them a craft kit from orientaltrading.com
-June 14 is Flag Day- make a flag related craft to deliver to a VA hospital or VFW/American Legion Hall
-get together a canned food or pet food drive- not hard to do- just call your local food bank or animal shelter, tell them want yo want to do, and they'll gladly come pick it up- put your kids in charge of counting donations, publicizing it, etc.
-

 

[maryteach]

If you have them

for just one period, you could go to puzzlemaker.com and make a word search for each of your classes, featuring their names. I just title it "Our Names." It cracked me up how much they enjoyed that this year. One kid even said, "Mrs. N., no one has ever made a word search with my name in it before. Can I keep it?"

You can knock yourself out with the most creative lesson plans under the sun, and no one bats an eye. Spend two minutes making a cheesy word search, and earn their undying appreciation.

If you have them all day, I don't know.

 

[SassyTeach]

I usually teach 4th grade,

but last year I was asked to teach 5th. The 5th grade teacher, one of our fabulous ed. techs, and I planned an "American Idol" activity. We, along with our students, brainstormed a huge list of things that we had learned over the course of the year. We then had the kids break up into groups of 3. The other teachers and I put the topics they had come up with in a hat, and each group drew out one slip of paper. They then had to create a little skit around the topic. We gave them a couple of days to "fine tune" their little skit before performing it in front of the judges; Randy, Paula, and myself (Simon). Each of us teachers took on one of the Idol judges "persona" and judged each skit, just like they would do on American Idol. I played Simon, and although I can't do a British accent, the kids loved my nasty comments, and how each of us played the judges. We even set up a table with coke glasses, and used props.

The kids absolutely LOVED this!!