First and Last Week of School Ideas

The first and last weeks of school can be odd weeks to plan for, as a teacher. The first week of school is often too early to go in-depth on the subjects of the term. It’s a time of easing your students into the basics of what you’ll be covering. Meanwhile, the last week of school is often a much more relaxed affair. Unless something has gone badly wrong, you should have covered the term’s curriculum by this point. In the absence of curriculum goals, you might find yourself wondering what to do to fill the time.

Fortunately, as the title of this blog might have already made clear, we have some first and last week of school ideas for you. And not just ideas, either. We also have plenty of different resources for you to also consider.

Games and activities

There are two times, in the school year, where you might find yourself scrambling for activities to engage your class with. As we’ve discussed, these are the first and last weeks of school. Fortunately, here at Twinkl, we have the social awareness to know that it’s awkward to raise a problem without offering a solution. So, here are some first and last week of school ideas for activities for you to consider.

First Week Games and Activities

In the first week of lessons, you have another goal besides introducing the curriculum. Which is introducing each other. Since your students will be working and learning together for the following year, it’s important for them to get to know each other. Here are some suggestions of first week activities to try.

Personality Traits Bingo

Getting to know people doesn’t have to be sitting around and making awkward small talk. Instead, why not make a game out of it? Have each of your students list a couple of personality traits and use them to make up bingo cards. Then have your students mingle and try to find people who match the traits on their cards.

Classroom Rules Activity

A good bonding exercise to get your students talking is to hold a discussion on deciding classroom rules. Now, not all rules are created with equal value in a classroom. You’ll likely have to use your executive veto power as the teacher to shoot down rules like, “we don’t have to do any work”. But it will get your students bonding, and they’re more likely to stick to rules they agreed upon.

Writing to My Future Self

A good first week writing activity is having students write a letter to their future self from the end of the year. This is a creative way of getting your students to set personal goals to motivate their education over the year.

Last Week Games and Activities

The focus of first and last week ideas for activities is to get your students into the correct mindset. If the first week of term is about preparing for what is to come, then the last week is about considering what has been accomplished. To help with that, please consider the following activities.

End of Term Memory Book

A wonderful group craft activity for the class is putting together a memory book of events that happened over the year. Using photos and pictures to add colour and life to it, your students can write entries about what they accomplished. It’s an excellent way to reflect on the past year.

Writing a Letter to My Past Self

One of our suggested first week of school ideas was for students to write a letter to their future self at the end of term about their goals for the year. Now that you’ve reached the end of term, it would be rude not to write back. Writing to their past selves about all that they’ve accomplished is a great way to reflect upon these things.

Write a Book of Advice for the Next Class

What good is wisdom if you don’t pass it on? If you’re looking for another idea of how to help your students reflect on how they’ve developed, here’s something to consider. Have them work together to write a book of advice for next year’s class.

Resources

Here at Twinkl, we’re always happy to dispense helpful advice, but that’s not all we can do for people searching for first and last week of school ideas. We bring this up a lot, but we spend much of our time creating resources to make the lives of educators easier. So here are some options for the first and last week of school

First Week

First Few Weeks of School Activity Pack

As we’ve said, the first week of school is an important time for helping your students to get to know each other. If you’re looking for an icebreaker activity for your students, then be sure to take a look at this handy game resource.

First Few Weeks of School Activity Pack

Maybe you’re looking for a selection of resources and activities to make use of in your lesson plans. In which case, this activity pack is a handy option for you to consider.

Parts of a Microscope Cut and Paste Worksheet

Or, maybe you’re looking for some simple work exercises that can help ease your students into their lessons. Well, we’ve got plenty of options to choose from, like this labeling a microscope worksheet.

Last Week

First Few Weeks of School Activity Pack

Colouring in is a quiet, engaging activity that has a surprisingly large number of developmental benefits. If you want colouring in to be part of your last week activities, then we’ve got plenty of resources like these unicorn colouring pages.

First Few Weeks of School Activity Pack

Looking for an end of term-themed activity booklet for your students to work through? Then be sure to consider the option above.

KS2 Last Week of Summer Term Resource Pack

You may also wish to check out this last week of summer term resource pack.

We hope that this blog has given you some useful advice and support with developing first and last week of school ideas of your own. Please be sure to also take a look at the related blogs listed below.

Related Blogs

End of Year Gifts for Students

Back to School: Helping Children Start Strong

End of Term Activities for Kids