Woah, start the countdown to the end of the school year! I love this time of year. You can actually feel the energy and excitement in the air as the weather gets warmer and the calendar moves closer to summer.
I find myself looking at my planner every year around this time–trying to make sure I can fit everything in and still have time for some fun end of year activities before we send the kids home for summer.
My Favorite End of Year Activities for Spanish Class
Reading Stories
It won’t come as a surprise that I love teaching with stories. Reading and talking about summer can be a fun way to capture student attention towards the end of the school year.
Kindergarten & 1st grade
I have several super simple stories that I choose from for kindergarten and first grade at the end of the school year. I have several in the Hay un Animal series that are a fun way to review basic vocabulary and structures they’ve learned throughout the school year.
2nd grade
My second graders love reading the story, El Verano de Llama. We read the story, act it out, connect the story to our own opinions, and match up photos with sentences. After all that hard work, I love to bring out a student favorite and do a Kahoot based on the story.
3rd grade
My third graders learn about Puerto Rico and I’m so hoping we have time to read the fabulous story, El Chivo en la Huerta, by Mundo de Pepita. This is such a fun story to read and act out. The story is more involved than others they’ve read and I love to see students rise to the challenge.
End of Year Review Games
Celebrating what students have learned throughout the school year can help end the year on a positive note. Review games with content they already know is such a great confidence booster at the end of the year. Plus it’s fun to see their faces light up as students find they easily know the answers.
I love to mix it up and have some lessons with technology and some without. My favorite techy review games are Kahoot, Blooket, and Baamboozle.
I don’t play it often and perhaps that’s why they love it, but a good old fashioned game of Bingo is my favorite non-tech review game. It never fails–the lesson following a Bingo lesson has students requesting to play it again. 😂
Walk to Read Activities
I find students to have extra squirrely energy as the year winds down. This always has me looking for ways to intentionally allow for them to move. Walk to Read or Write the Room activities are great for that!
Since I don’t have a classroom dedicated to Spanish, I tend to use Walk to Read more often. That way I can set it up in the grade level hallway and use it with each class I teach.
In my 1st and 2nd grade classes I’ve found great success keeping things simple using this activity that focuses on basic sentences with colors. First, I post the clues around the hallway for students to find. They aren’t really “hiding,” just taped on the walls with the goal of having to walk around to find them.
Students have to go out and find one clue at a time. After reading it, they come back to their desk and color the correct letter the correct color. Then they can head back out to the hall in search of another clue.
Printing the clues on colored paper helps them stand out a little better. *There’s nothing worse than making it too challenging at this level! (And when you have limited time for your lesson…)
You can create a Walk to Read Activity with whatever content that makes the most sense for your students. They could read sentences describing an animal or a shape and then come back to color it. They could read opinion sentences written by people at school and then record it. Once you start brainstorming, the possibilities are endless!
Go Outside and Play
Lastly, it’s so great to just take a day and let the kids play outside. I love to bring groups of students outside to draw with chalk. It’s a simple way to get outside while still incorporating our content. If we’re working on a story, I have them draw their favorite part of the story.
Planning fun lessons that you’ll enjoy teaching can definitely help you make the most of the last few weeks of school. ¡Suerte, profes!