It’s a great way to keep everyone excited to come to school, excited to see what today will bring.
~ Zeba from Episode 82 of The Kindergarten Cafe Podcast
Episode Summary
The end of the year is quickly approaching! In this episode I share some of the end-of-the-year celebrations specifically designed for kindergarten teachers aiming to enhance excitement and engagement during this transitional time. I share my approach to implementing themed days leading up to the school year’s end, shifting focus from an anxious countdown to a series of joyful experiences. I detail various themed days, ranging from Wacky Hat Day to Board Game Bonanza, allowing for curriculum completion while keeping students engaged and enthusiastic. Creative themed activities foster joy and are highlighted as essential tools for maintaining a positive classroom atmosphere. This episode serves as a guide for educators looking to infuse creativity and joy into the final days of the school year.
In this Episode, I Share:
- Overcoming End-of-Year Overwhelm
- Planning Theme Days
- Fun Activities for Theme Days
- Creating a Special Atmosphere
Resources in Today’s Episode
- Kindergarten Theme Days BUNDLE ~ Engaging end of year activities full day plans
- Why I Don’t Do A Countdown for Summer
- 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 I want to talk about the end of the year, specifically how to get some end-of-the-year magic into your classroom.
[0:11] And I know not all of you are ready for the end of the year. I myself go until mid-June. I think it’s the 20th. I’m trying not to think about it. But some of you end much, much sooner. So I want to get this out there, and you can listen to it when you’re ready. that is the beauty of podcasts. So let’s get started.
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.
[1:26] The end of the year is always, there’s always so much going on. You’ve sort of worked your way through your curriculum. You’re not sure what to do to fill the time. You’re counting down the days in your head because I actually don’t think you should be counting down the days in front of the kids. I have a whole blog post on that because kids that are prone to struggle with transition and have big behaviors and big emotions about the upcoming transition are going to be even more triggered by seeing the days count down in front of them of how many days left they have of this special place you’ve created. That’s a very short answer for why I don’t do public countdowns. But anyway, in your head, you’re counting down the days. It’s just kind of dragging on. You’re just thinking about your to-do list. It gets bigger and bigger. the end of the year can be overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. And that’s why I love doing theme days. So like I said, I get out mid-June. So beginning of June is when I start my theme days, the last couple of weeks of school. And it’s a great way to keep everyone excited to come to school, excited to see what today will bring. It’s something different each day, but you can still follow your routine, you can still follow your schedule, and you can still keep academics going so they’re still practicing what you’ve been teaching them all year. But it gets everyone excited to come to school, even you, the teachers, even other teachers, they’ll be coming to my door every day being like, oh, what’s today? I had to come see. It gets everyone excited.
[2:56] And that’s what we should want. We should want to end the year with fun and excitement. And it keeps the focus on what is today going to be versus that worry of what’s going to happen when the countdown ends? What’s going to happen when school ends?
[3:12] Like the kids that struggle with that transition really benefit from doing these fun theme days. So how do we go about doing the theme days? So I plan ahead, I make a calendar.
[3:24] And if you do want to purchase my theme day bundle, it has the editable calendar as a bonus. And so I print that out ahead of time. I send it home with all the kids so that parents know what’s coming. Some days have the option to bring things in or to dress a certain way, but I make clear that it’s optional. But I send home the calendar so that they have that to look ahead. And I plan out my days that I want to do with my students based on how many days are left and the kids in my class, what they’re interested in. I change it up every year. You know, if there’s field day one day, then I’ll definitely pick a day that doesn’t have a lot going on because field day is going to be the main event of the day. So I don’t want to take away from that. As I’m planning, I’m also thinking that the beginning of my final weeks of school, I do have a little bit of curriculum to wrap up. I have some things I have to get done, maybe some assessments or something. So I want theme days that are more open. And maybe it’s like a rainbow day where it’s not as involved with activities. There are activities to do, but it’s more about like dressing like a rainbow and having some fun rainbow things around. but I don’t have to do a whole bunch for it if I don’t want. And I can focus on wrapping up the curriculum that I have to do.
[4:43] Versus at the end of the weeks, I have, when we have just a few final days left, I have no curriculum left. So I need something to fill my time with the whole day. And so I’ve planned these theme days around the ability to take up your whole day. Like I have literacy activities, math activities for each day. But for me, when I’m doing it in the beginning, I don’t always do every single activity because I’m wrapping up the curriculum or the must do or whatever. And then by the end, I am using every single thing of the theme days.
[5:16] So I’ll get into sort of like which ones I plan for the end and stuff like that. So the order that I do the theme days in is at the beginning I’ll do wacky hat day because again all that really needs to happen is the kids wear or make a wacky hat show and tell they can bring something into school toy day books and bubbles day bring in a favorite book or some bubbles rainbow day dress like a rainbow backwards day dress backwards and sunglasses spectacular just bring in a pair of sunglasses.
[5:50] Pajama party, dress in pajamas. And so slowly over time, I’m building in more and more of the activities that I’ve created and doing less and less of the traditional curriculum that we’ve been doing all year because I start running out of things to do. And then I start to do my more involved days that I totally do from beginning to end the entire day is this theme. So I do Pirate Day, Fairytale Fun, Cool Camping, Beach Blast.
[6:23] Board Game Bonanza, Crazy Cleanup, and then Cinema Day. I do a movie day in the last day of school because for me, in my school, we have to pack a lot of things up and close down the room, and we’re not really given a lot of time to do that. So I do that while the kids are watching the movie. And it’s just a You don’t need to have anything out. So if I am packing things up or cleaning things up the day before, they won’t miss it because they’ll be watching the movie. So that’s sort of the thought that goes into the order of it. My favorite theme day of the whole year is board game day. It’s one of the very last days that we do because I encourage kids to bring in a favorite board game or card game, but I also have materials so that they can create their own board games.
[7:11] And between a bunch of the kids bringing in games that they aren’t used to playing or they haven’t played all year in my classroom and then they’re not bored of yet, between that and making their own games, this literally lasts all day long. The kids will sit and make their own board games for a majority of the day, and then they will want to play those games with each other. So it takes up a lot of the day. The kids are so engaged and excited about it, and they can take those home and
[7:42] keep playing with it over the summer. But just the act of building their own board games, has so many awesome literacy skills and math skills. They’re thinking of patterns and, you know, counting out how many pieces they want to have or steps in the board game, or they’re making rules for the board game, making directions. So there’s so much benefit to making their own board games, and it just keeps them so engaged. What more can we ask for for the end of the year?
[8:11] Another favorite thing I like to do when we get towards the end is on my screen projector on the whiteboard I will put up a picture or like a background video like you can search relaxing music video and you can search the theme and they have all these videos out there so I’ll do like pirate ship and it’ll just have like relaxing music in the background or just the sound of the waves hitting the ship I’ll do a castle or a campsite or the beach and so I have those up for the kids when they come in and it’s the background for the day really makes it feel a little extra special. And for beach day, I let the kids bring in like a towel so that they can, we can read outside. For camping day, I let them bring in sleeping bags and they can read in their sleeping bag. It is so much fun, but I hate having to roll the sleeping bags back up at the end of the day, but that’s the only hardship. Otherwise, I very much enjoy having them snuggle up in their sleeping bags and doing their reading. We’ll do like a little nature walk. It’s just so much fun. Pirate day, we do like a scavenger hunt with the pirate map that’s cut up.
[9:23] So there is just so much fun to have in these end of the year theme days.
[9:28] I seriously look forward to them all year long. The kids look forward to them as soon as they find out about it. It gets everyone excited, and I would encourage you to try it out this year, especially if you have felt dreary, stressed out, overwhelmed with the end of the year. This could be a really good thing to try out and bring some fun into that. I will say I know a lot of people do theme days in terms of the A to Z countdown, down and I think that while that’s the same benefits of doing theme days that I was talking about the fact that you’re counting down the alphabet has the same negative impact that I was mentioning earlier about kids are very aware about when you get to the end they’re very aware of there’s three days left there’s three letters left we’re almost to z or almost a I don’t I don’t know which way it goes but you know we’re almost the end of the alphabet that’s going to be on the front of their mind versus, oh, we’re just having super fun today. So I would encourage you just to think about that, because I know that A to Z is very, very popular. It’s also a lot of theme days. That’s 26.
[10:31] I don’t know. That’s just a lot. That’s a lot for people to remember about, for parents to keep track of, for you to keep track of. So I personally like my way better, but mostly because I don’t want my kids to be focusing on how many days they have left of school with me.
[10:48] I want them to be focusing on how much fun we’re going to have that day. Because the kids that are really struggling with regulation and behavior are going to be having an extra difficult time at the end of the year. And one of the ways we can help support them and prevent that is by avoiding talk about next year. So I don’t say almost first graders or, oh, you’ve only got 12 days left till you’re first graders. I don’t talk about that at all. I used to. And then I noticed it was an instant trigger for the kids that struggle with the transition. And so one easy thing I can do is just stop referencing that, right? So I just say like, oh, we got, you know, a couple exciting theme days coming up. Look what’s next. We’ve got the beach day. How exciting? Like, That’s what we’re focusing on. And it really does help them. So if you have kids like that in your class, something to think about.
[11:37] All right. Well, if you are interested to try out the theme days, you can get them individually or you can get the bundle. And when you get the bundle, you you basically get a couple theme days for free. So that’s great. The link for that will be in the show notes. and our quote of the day is for a it was we had a superhero themed field day so our room was the incredibles and i don’t know do you do a field day do you have themes for those field days anyway we were the incredibles and so a little girl walked to the room and goes incredibles are in the house and did a full wolf howl that’s the kind of emotion we want our kids to have at the end of the year. We want them to be excited about coming to school, and we want you to be excited coming to school. If you’re looking for more tips for the end of the year, check out my end of the year guide. It’s kindergartencafe.org slash May and has all the things I do the final month or months of school. So you can check that out and reach out to me with any questions. And if you do try out the theme days, please let me know which ones you liked, and I can’t wait to hear about it. Thanks so much!
[12:48] 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.