If March is all about test prep, then April and May bring a breath of fresh air (and more fun!). I’ve shared my strategies for test prep before, so you know I try to make our test prep activities authentic and meaningful, but it’s STILL a big sigh of relief when those tests are over. We spend our final six weeks of school working on thematic projects, doing cumulative reviews, and enjoying our remaining time as a classroom community. Here’s a round-up of the BEST educational end-of-the-year activities for upper elementary – all are PERFECT for those post-testing days, too! 

Many of these educational end-of-the-year activities come from teachers in our FREE Inspired in Upper Elementary Facebook Group. Come join us!

Literacy Activities for April and May

April is National Poetry Month, so it’s the perfect time to show students that poetry doesn’t have to be about rhyming roses. Have your students try black-out poetry or Six-Word Memoirs. Then visit this teaching poetry post for even more ideas!

Figurative language can also be easily integrated with your poetry unit. One of our Facebook Group members suggested having students analyze songs to locate various figurative language. Or try using Funny Figurative Language for extra end-of-the-year giggles!

We do several novel projects throughout the year. Several of our readers suggested creating Bloom Balls or holding a book parade, too!

Gwen S. suggested fractured fairy tales for educational end-of-the-year activities in your literacy block. She said, “We read a version or a couple versions of popular fairytales then the kids get to write their own versions changing the major story elements to their own ideas while keeping the general idea of the story there. Think Jan Brett’s version of The Three Bears set in the North Pole with polar bears and a native girl rather than Goldilocks and the three bears. We did it earlier this year and my kids LOVED it!”

Math End-of-the-Year Activities

When I taught fifth grade, we always ended the year with volume. Tanna S. suggested volume sculptures and a sculpture parade. She said, “We’ve done life-size and desktop volume sculptures. Students must use boxes for parts, figure out the volume of each “part” and calculate the total volume of the sculpture. We use hot glue to affix and paint them (life-size uses A LOT of paint). We put them on gym dollies and held a parade, displayed them on top of the library shelves, and placed life-size sculptures all around the school. We had a giant giraffe standing by the cafeteria. For the parade, all the other classes line the hallway to see the creations and we play music while we stroll the school.” You could create a recycled animal zoo from boxes, cylinders, etc.

Jeopardy-style review games are always fun, too! This post has tried and true tips to keep students on their toes when reviewing content. 

Your students will have a BLAST competing in The Metrics Olympics. Challenge other classes at your grade level for even more fun! To host it, identify a variety of Olympic-inspired activities that can be adapted to incorporate the metric system (long jump, shot put, javelin throw, relay races, etc.). Students must record their scores using the metric system. You can integrate follow-up activities in the classroom to further solidify students’ grasp of metric measurements and extend to other math skills (like graphing and data).

We also complete several math and literacy projects as part of our educational end-of-the-year activities.

Social Studies End-of-the-Year Activities

Wax museums are always popular events. Students research a historical figure of their choice, write a speech, dress up (the more creative, the better!), create props, and then invite younger students to tour the museum. When students “press” their button, they come alive to share facts from their speech.

Nicolle R. said, “How about building county floats and having a parade at the end? Students have to research an assigned county (history, economy, landmarks, natural resources) and build a float to represent it. You can go small-scale and build small tissue-sized box floats. Or larger scale and build a wagon, stroller, skateboard sized floats.”

STEM End-of-the-Year Activities

STEM projects are engaging all year long, but we ramp them up a notch at the end of the year! You can countdown to the end of the year with a different summer-inspired STEM project each day. Treat your students to a treat by making s’mores in a solar oven using pizza boxes, test their skills with nature print paper, or hold “Minute To Win It” style STEM contests.

Colleen S. said, “Grid drawings, I take a cartoon figure and draw a 10 by 10 grid over it, then I take a larger piece of paper and draw a 20 by 20 grid on it with each square measuring 1 inch by 1 inch. Then I have them enlarge the picture, that will keep them busy for a little while.”

If your students love art and math, try any of these math concept pictures! The end-of-the-year time capsule is especially fun!

More Educational End-of-the-Year Activities

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is never finished and picture books are always in season. Grab your favorite picture book from the list and use these picture book companions to teach crucial social and emotional skills as part of your educational end-of-the-year activities.

Amanda M. said, “My kids create games for friends to play. They pick a topic and create a plan for their game set-up. Could be original ideas or modeled after an already existing game. Once their plan is approved, they create all the pieces to their game. They wrote game directions which counts as a functional text writing piece. Then, the games are placed around the room for groups to play. The players leave feedback for the game creators. The kids LOVE it!”

My students are HOOKED on the Six Minutes podcast. Podcasts are a great way to challenge students’ listening skills and you can pair them with several podcast activities that help students flex their content-related skills. Visit this post for a list of my podcast recommendations.

Kallie L. said, “Have them design a lesson plan to “teach your passion” and then they teach the class their passion. I’ve had friendship bracelets, clogging, baseball, slideshow on supernovas. They love it!”

Finally, you can visit this post to read through all of the great suggestions in our FREE Inspired in Upper Elementary Facebook group.

More End-of-the-Year Activities

Still looking for more? Read this post packed with more educational end-of-the-year activities. 

These FREE last week of school lesson plans are also a great place to head next!