For younger children, the end of each school year is a momentous occasion filled with laughter, growing up, and a ton of fun. Celebrate the end of the school year with your students with these simple, crafty projects that will create memories and plenty of giggles in your classroom.
Easily craft picture frames. Use craft foam to cut out frame shapes or purchase pre-cut mat frames to decorate. Let students run wild with decorating their frames in any color, using decorative tape, stickers, foam shapes, markers, glitter, and other materials. Take pictures during the last few days of school and let students place their favorite in the frame for a memory they and their families can treasure forever.
Treasure chests are another great way to celebrate the end of the year. Each child can create their own treasure chest using paper patterns or pre-purchased paper mache boxes. After students decorate their boxes with favorite colors, pictures, and words, have each student write one good thought, wish, or memory for all of their classmates’ boxes. This can be a great way for kids to share favorite memories, well wishes for summer, or something special they like about their classmates.
Making your own class yearbooks is a great way to share some memories and well wishes in the last few days of school. Use craft foam for students to make decorative covers while you gather pictures with an instant or digital camera. Capture their creativity and their smiles with fun photo props! Print out the pictures, attach them to pages, and let children comment and decorate in the yearbooks of friends. This is a great, inexpensive way to share photos, relive memories, and make some keepsakes for summer – all with a low cost.
For classrooms that want to focus more on the summer, create summer sun catchers. Crayon shavings in between wax paper can be ironed for summer sun catchers. For younger children, use glued on tissue paper for the same bright colors without the heat. Then, let kids cut out their colorful sheets in fun summer shapes. Students can decorate the sun catchers with their name, year, and favorite memory for a colorful reminder about the school year.
If you have additional suggestions to share, we’d love to read about them – so please send them our way!
[…] Having each child put together a unique book with favorite memories of the school year is a great way to incorporate reading, writing, and art in one project. After writing about their favorite memory, make sure to order plenty of paint, glitter, and glue so children can decorate their books. […]