Tips To Make End Of School Year Simple and Fun

The end of the school year is one month away for us. It’s such an exciting and busy time! While the last month of school is a time of excitement and anticipation for children, it could easily turn into a time of chaos for parents. Between the end of year school events, final projects, and class parties … it’s a lot to keep track of.
In addition to all of the activities and events to wrap up the school year, there’s also the pressure of the finality of the situation. Once the school year ends, there’s no changing or redoing anything. The best way to handle this, is to be prepared. Rather than dread this time of the year, make it a special time. The end of the school year should be a time of celebration. After all, it’s the completion of another year of learning and growth. That’s something to celebrate!
Over the years, I’ve found and applied ways to simplify this busy time of the school year. Each of these steps have helped me make ending the school year as enjoyable and efficient as possible. My hope is that these steps will help make it simple and enjoyable for you too.
These are my tips for simplifying the end of the school year:
Check Grades and Assignments
Now is the time to make sure all assignments and grades are current in the school grading system. Assuming your school uses an online system that allows students and parents to monitor grades, this should be easy. Simply review the grade for each school subject. If any improvement is needed, now’s the time to define what needs to be done before final grades are issued. If your school isn’t using an online grading system, now’s the time to find out from the teacher what the grades in each subject are. Either way, it’s important to be proactive now.
Define What Matters
The end of the school year is a time filled with many activities and events. That, however, doesn’t mean you have to attend or be a part of everything. It’s important to define what matters to you and your children, so that you’ll be able to stay focused during this period. As events and activities pop up, you’ll then be able to quickly decide what’s optional and what’s required. Whether you attend every event or only a few, make sure it’s being done because it matters to you.
Update Your Calendar
This may seem obvious, but as more and more events pop up during this time it’s easy to overlook it. Once you’ve defined what matters, it’s important to add events and activities to your calendar as soon as you learn about the event. I recommend using an online family calendar, to keep everyone in the family informed. Not keeping your calendar updated means you may end up missing an important event or being unprepared for it. That’s not the best way to end the school year.
Prepare Teacher Appreciation Gifts
A small gift for each of your child’s teachers is always a good idea. A gift card and a card are usually the easiest and most appreciated gifts. Other gift ideas: flowers, books for the classroom library, or s’mores kit. The idea of the gift should be simply to show appreciation from you and your child. Preparing the teacher gifts in advance is much easier and efficient now than during the last week of school.
Plan a Fun End of School Year Day
How you celebrate the last day of school doesn’t matter, as long as you do. Whether it’s getting ice cream after school or planning a special dinner, it’s nice to acknowledge the end of the school year. How you celebrate doesn’t matter, as long it’s done on the actual last day of school. It’s a nice family tradition to have, and a simple way to create happy memories.
Are you looking forward to the end of the school year? Any tips you’d like to share?
If you liked this post, you might also like 5 Tips for a Simplified School Year.
Rachel
It’s nice to give an end of the school year gift. I can’t believe the school year is almost finished! Great tips!
Lucy
Thank you! The school year goes by so fast. Glad you found these helpful 🙂
Angela @ Literary Wanderer
I love the tip about defining what matters. Sometimes we feel like we must accept every invitation or go to every event, but it’s not necessary! We need to start using a family calendar, too.
Lucy
Glad you found this helpful! I find that when we define what matters we don’t feel like we’re missing out for not attending everything. It really simplies things 🙂