End of the Year Celebrations in Kindergarten ~ Ep. 83

Episode Summary

Celebrating kindergarten students and their families by recognizing growth and achievements at the end of the year is so important. In this episode I discuss effective strategies, such as creating personalized memory books and organizing an end-of-year party with slideshows and student portfolios. I also suggest incorporating theme days to engage students. I encourage kindergarten teachers (new or experienced) to reflect on their own dedication while fostering a supportive community that thrives on celebration and connection.

In this episode I share:

• Importance of Celebrating Growth
• Creating Memory Books
• End of Year Party Ideas
• Theme Days for Celebration
• Reflecting on Student Growth

Resources Mentioned:

• End of the Year Writing Prompts & Memory Book!
• Kindergarten Theme Days BUNDLE ~ Engaging end of year activities full day plans
• May & June Kindergarten Plans

Connect with Zeba:

• Instagram – @kindergartencafe
• Facebook – @kindergartencafe
• Website – www.kindergartencafe.org
• Tik Tok – @kindergartencafe

Read the Transcript

[0:00] Hey, teacher friends, it’s Zeba from Kindergarten Cafe, and today I want to talk about celebrating learning with families.

[0:07] So all the ways that we can celebrate all of the hard work and the growth that your students have had over the years. So there’s lots of options to celebrate, so let’s get into it.

You’re listening to the kindergarten cafe podcast where kindergarten teachers come to learn classroom tested tips and tricks and teaching ideas they can use in their classroom right away I’m Zeba creator and founder of kindergarten cafe and I help kindergarten teachers with everything they need from arrival to dismissal in order to save time, work smarter, not harder, and support students with engaging and purposeful lessons. I’m here to cheer you on through your successes and breakthroughs and offer support and resources so you never have to feel stuck or alone. Ready to start saving time and reducing your stress all while using effective and purposeful lessons that students love? Let’s get started.

[1:12] So first, why should we celebrate the learning? I think everyone understands why we should celebrate the learning. We want to acknowledge all the growth that the kids have had over the year. We want to help kids feel proud of their achievements, all that they’ve done, and we want to show their families all the hard work and growth they’ve had. And help the parents and families to have a positive feeling about school and sharing the learning that the kids have had. What are some different ways that we can do that? One of the ways that I celebrate learning with my students is I’ll use end-of-the-year assessments to show growth to my students. So I especially love my assessment pack where I have the graphs where I show students the progress that they’ve made at the beginning of the year, how many letters they knew at the middle of the year, how many letters they knew end of the year. Same with numbers and high-frequency words. And so when we do our final assessment, we reflect on how much they’ve grown. And even if I don’t have those graphs, like for our math assessment, where we do one more, one less or counting, I’ll say to them, I’ll say, hey.

[2:15] When we first did this, you couldn’t do this. You didn’t know what the one more was or what one less was. And now you knew that in a snap. Like, you should be really proud of all the hard work you did to learn all of those numbers. Right? So just talking about it, even just for a minute after you do the assessments that you have to do anyway at the end of the year, is the perfect way to celebrate growth with kids. And even write a note home to families. A good note home, happy note, happy mail. and just say, hey, we did the end of the year assessment and they rocked it. They know all of their number order. They know all of their number parts to five, whatever it is.

[2:54] Celebrate that with the kids and let them celebrate it with the families to let them celebrate the growth that their kids have had. But I definitely like to take that moment with my students to talk about, hey, when you first started kindergarten, you couldn’t do this. And this is where you were. And this is you were having trouble with this and now look at you.

[3:11] Now look at what you can do. So I love to take the opportunity to celebrate their learning. The other thing that you can do is do a memory book at the end of the year. So I have my end of the year memory book and I’ll give it to kids towards the end of the year and let them start reflecting on their year in kindergarten. I like to give them a chance to reflect and process their year and we go over some of our fun memories together because one of the pages say my favorite memory.

[3:38] And so we’ll talk about what are some things you love. Maybe it was the field trip. Maybe it was the chick unit. Maybe it was getting to have pajama day. Like you can talk about some of those fun days that you had throughout the year. It also asks the kids about like what their classroom looked like and who their some of the teachers were and who their friends were. And so it’s a great way to reflect on the year. But it’s also a great thing to give kids and families to look back on when they’re in fourth, fifth grade and they’re like, what was I like in kindergarten or what was kindergarten like? They can look back on that memory book and be reminded of all the fun things you did and all the fun people in their class. So I love doing the memory books. And as a bonus, they are a great time filler for the end of the year because there’s often a lot of time at the end of the year where you’re like.

[4:30] Oh, that activity was over so fast. I need just a few more minutes to wrap up what I’m doing. What can I have you do? I don’t know. This is the perfect time filler for that. And it’s easy to be independent with this. As long as you like tell them what the page is or there’s pictures on the page to help them remember, like they can just take it and run with it. So I love that fact. That’s a win-win win if I ever saw one. So I usually give them the book and then if they finish early with anything, they’ll have it in their unfinished box and I’ll just say okay if you finish early you can do the next page in your memory book so that works out well.

[5:07] So another way to celebrate is with a party. I personally don’t do a graduation.

[5:13] It’s just not something my school’s ever done. I’m not opposed to them at all. But like other grades don’t do it. It’s more like a fifth grade when they’re done with elementary school. So that’s just why I don’t do a graduation again. Not opposed to it. It seems like a lot of work, but if you want to do it and your team does it, great, go for it. But I do an end of the year party. And what I do at this party is I have a slideshow where I show families the pictures from throughout the year. And I love to show the kids at the start of the school year with their first day pictures. And then remember like just how small and adorable and cute they were at the beginning of the year and then show them throughout the year how they’re growing, how they’re playing with each other, some of the fun things we’ve done, the projects, but also some of the everyday learning that we do. So I love to have the slideshow. After the slideshow, I share with them portfolios. And in this portfolio, it’s just a simple binder. I do put a couple pictures in, like their first day picture, or we’ll do the 100th day of school picture, a picture with me in them so they have that memory. But mostly I’ve kept some work throughout the year, like some stellar work or things that are seasonal or timely. They’ll have their seasonal writing, like it’ll say March writing. And what’s great is in September, they weren’t writing at all. And then now in June, for their June writing, they’re writing sentences.

[6:37] And their handwriting’s beautiful for the most part. And it’s just so cool to see the growth progress from their work at the beginning of the year. And so I put it in chronological order. If we have writing about December vacation or 100th day or Earth Day, like the things that I put into the class books throughout the year, like about our name book or the rhyming class books like Down by the Bay or the family book that they wrote, like anything that’s one of my class books, we just take apart and we put back into their portfolio. So that’s what I give to their families and I give everyone a chance to look at the portfolio with their kid and so I make sure because I know I’m doing this and when I invite families to our end of the year party I make it a big deal about I want someone from each family to be there it can be a sibling that’s at the school let me know and I will talk to their teacher it could be a grandparent like it could be anyone you want but I want each kid to have someone and if you can’t be there. Like I totally understand. I understand work obligations and all that. Let me know and I’ll get a teacher there for that student. So that I’ll pick someone that the student knows and I’ll ask them to come and I’ll have them sit with them. And then they can show the portfolio to someone. That’s a really big deal that everyone has someone that they can share their portfolio to.

[7:53] And so if you are doing this, maybe invite a couple staff members that are familiar with your class, specialists, principals, coaches, anything like that, and invite them to come to your party. And if someone is late or isn’t there, that way the kid has someone that they can read with, show the portfolio to. But it’s also a great way to just celebrate the learning with everyone in the school. After everyone has looked through the portfolios, I invite families to go to like a picnic outside or inside if it’s bad weather. I encourage families to bring a game that they a favorite lawn game that they like to bring or something like that. And the families just have snacks together and play and I just stand back and watch and it’s so much fun. And everyone just has fun together. We’ve celebrated the year. And it’s just a really fun time for the families and the students. And yeah, it’s a great way to have. It’s the perfect end of the year party, in my opinion. It’s not too much work. It’s not too much setup. It’s all about reflecting on the growth that students have had, being excited for them, being proud of them, and having fun.

[8:59] Last week, we talked about theme days and why I like to do theme days at the end of the year. If you haven’t heard that episode, you can go back and listen to it. But another reason that I love doing theme days is it’s just a great way to celebrate the learning. And so it adds the joy to the final days of school. Kids really get excited to come to school. And you can talk about how because we’ve done so much hard work this year, we get to celebrate with having a special wacky hat day or board game day like this. You can talk about it as you’ve worked so hard, now we get to have a really fun theme day. But also it just is fun for all the kids and teachers for the final days of school. So if you haven’t listened to that episode, definitely check that out. But those are the ways I celebrate learning at the end of the year. I want to celebrate all the growth that my students have had. I know you do that through the end of the year assessments, taking just one minute after you’re assessing a student to talk about their growth that they’ve had and make sure they feel proud, maybe using Notes Home to communicate with about that.

[10:00] Using memory books that the students make to reflect on their learning, and then the end of the year party with slideshow and the portfolios and a little picnic are such fun ways to celebrate all the learning that your kids have done. And if you are new to teaching kindergarten, I hope that you take this moment to look back on your students and celebrate yourself because we can get so bogged down until this is where they are at the end of the year, this is where they should be, or they’re not there yet or they are or whatever it is, but stop for a minute and think about where they started. Like when I’m doing the portfolios and the slideshow or looking at the end of the year assessments, I’m looking back to the beginning of the year and seeing where they started and where they are now, whether it’s where they should be or not. Their growth is incredible. Incredible.

[10:51] And so give yourself some celebration and just celebrate with the kids and celebrate with yourself because they did all that growth thanks to you and all of your hard work that you put in through the year. Make sure that you celebrate yourself as well. Quote of the day was an announcement about a parent event came on the loudspeaker, and a boy said, my mom said she can’t come. She said she doesn’t want to come. I am encouraging her, but it’s okay. Parents might not want to come to all the school events. I think they generally want to come to the end of the year celebration in your classroom, but if not, it’s okay. You can find other adults to be there for students or maybe a sibling or a friend or something like that, but I’m just very honest. Not all parents want to come, and that’s okay. Great. If you have any questions about how to celebrate learning with your kids, let me know. Reach out on email or Instagram anytime and I hope you liked the episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Kindergarten Cafe podcast. Be sure to check out the show notes for more information and resources or just head straight to kindergartencafe.org for all the goodies. If you liked this episode, the best ways to show your support are to subscribe, leave a review, or send it to a friend. I’ll be back next week with even more kindergarten tips. See you then.