End of the Year Reflection Activities for the IB PYP Classroom

end of the year school activities ib pyp inquiry based learning international baccalaureate pyp pyp classroom

Greetings international teachers, from (not so) sunny Scotland. Another school year is almost over and I know those main challenges that we teachers face at the end of the school year.

Reflecting on the school year
Closing out portfolios meaningfully
Keeping our students engaged AND learning right up until the end.
Saying goodbyes (so many of our international students move on & away)
Report writing AND maintaining our sanity......you know?

Well, I have a few ideas for activities that are perfect for the end of the year that I wanted to share with you. These are easy to prepare, easy to implement and easy to keep the kids motivated whilst learning. Even if you arent at that point in your school year, take a look. Im hoping you'll be able to find something that might work for your class.

White Board Summer Wishes

The picture below is a photo of me with messages from my 3rd grade students. This is a super easy and fun activity for ALL ages. The children stand in front of your whiteboard or behind it ( as in my case below) as their classmates WRITE a short message reflecting on what they love about that student. Spread the love with these positive, caring messages.

Here's the fun part....

The student in question CANNOT look at the messages. It will be a special secret to be handed to them as a photo ON THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL.

Each child shall take a turn to stand in front of the whiteboard.
They MUST NOT peek, as the others take turns to write their positive messages to their classmate.
You will then take a photo of the child WITH their messages.
Erase the messages before the child returns to their seat.
Then the next student will take their position in front of the blank whiteboard and the whole process will begin again.
When all students have had a chance to be gifted with the messages from their friends, print the photos.
I like to print them in a format that allows me to write my own little message.
The photos are then sealed in an envelope or folded in half and delivered to the children on the final day of school.

It is such a lovely way to apply the Learner Profile attributes of BEING CARING and BEING a COMMUNICATOR and such a fun surprise for them to see all of those "feel good ' notes from their friends and beautiful reminder of their school year.

Planning A Popcorn Party

Who doesnt love a popcorn party? And let's just make it an agentic, learning activity too?

This is fun, interactive maths inquiry activity that can be planned by grades 3-5 children and delivered to the younger students. A highly engaging maths project, it keeps the learning going as the children put maths into practice while planning their own popcorn party.

Taking Community Action: My upper grades kiddos put their maths skills into practice through this inquiry based maths project to plan a popcorn party. My intention was to have them do it for our own class but then some caring kiddos asked to plan it for our little PYP buddies to join in too . So we had to double our quantities. Great maths application AND problem solving AND taking action for their school community. #proudteacher

You can click the image below to take a closer look at this resource in my store.

Plan for about 5 days of maths periods to work through this project.
It is a perfect end of the year activity, keeping the kids engaged, putting those ATL skills to use
and applying their maths concepts too. Win-win.

Giant Reflection Quilt

This activity is both an independent reflection activity as well as a community reflection where you can have your students reflect & assess with these connection jigsaw/quilts. Each child was given a blank jigsaw template and then asked to think about how they had grown, progressed and become more knowledgeable over the course of the year. I guided them with our guiding questions on our reflection bank and included the units they most enjoyed too.

Questions included:

What things that made me think, " Wow!"
How might my learning transfer into next year in grade x?
What if I used my new knowledge to change the world?
Which Learner Profile attribute would I like to carry forward into my new school year and why?
Which unit of inquiry did I wonder about most and why?

The children then joined their reflection jigsaw pieces to create a giant class jigsaw or quilt of their thoughts. We took time to enjoy this gallery of thoughts before we write our end of year reflections for our portfolios.

END OF THE YEAR DRAMA CIRCLE

If you want to go out with a bang, then this is it! This is HILARIOUS! It It is laugh out loud funny as the children act out the humorous drama reflection of a school year. Designed for my PYP4 students, drama circles are one of my favourite ways to integrate communication skills with reading fluency.

Awards Certificates for the IB PYP

BEING REFLECTIVE: Finally, I gave the children the chance to look over the sub-skills that we had been working on over the course of the year. I wanted to select their OWN award for themselves AND an award for another student in our class.

Such a special way to end their school year.

To keep things fair, I had each child pull a name of their classmate out of a hat. They had to take a few days to ponder the skills and Learner Profile attributes of that student before they decided upon the award. In that last week of school, our reflection time ( at the end of every afternoon) became an mini award ceremony as the children took turns to share their own certificate with the rest of the class, explaining why they had decide to award themselves. Then, they surprised their classmate with a presentation of an award too.

You can take a look at the awards certificates that I created for this activity by clicking the picture below. I have a set for little kids and big kids too for both ATL sub-skills and Learner Profile attributes. Choose which set you prefer.

Wishing you a wonderful, final few weeks and an absolutely fabulous summer break!

P.S. If you're looking for summer PD, take a look at my online course, Essentials for Inquiry. It is a comprehensive, 12+ hours of video based learning that will have you ready to confidently start your new year with student led inquiry. I'd love to work with you!