My Favorite End of the Year Activity: Last Day Feelings

The end of the year is bittersweet. We’re all excited for summer vacation, of course. But students and teachers are also probably feeling some other emotions, too. Today I’m sharing my favorite end of the year activity to explore those last day feelings with your kiddos!

Celebrate the end of the year with my favorite activity: Last Day Feelings!

First Day Jitters & Last Day Blues

Celebrate the last day of school with the read aloud "Last Day Blues".

This last day of school activity is one of my all time favorites and actually came about as a follow up to an activity we do on the first day of school. You might be familiar with the book First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg. Every year on the first day of school, we read this book and talk about how we’re all feeling. We make a graph of our feelings, and each kiddo completes a follow up worksheet. Over the years, I found that this was a great icebreaker for students and helps kiddos put a description on how they’re feeling about being in a new classroom.

Recently, I decided to bring this lesson full circle and reflect on those first day feelings in comparison to our last day feelings. The same author just happens to have a great book called Last Day Blues that covers this very topic! So, we read the book, talk about how we’re feeling about the school year coming to an end, and then work through the activities together. I also like to pull out our chart from the beginning of the year for some additional reflection.

Why You’ll Love This Meaningful Last Day Lesson

Students can share their last day feelings using no-prep writing pages.

This last day activity feels meaningful and relevant to students during this busy time of year. It gives us a moment to pause and think about what an amazing year we’ve had! I also love that it allows us to chat through any specific feelings, worries, or anticipations my kids have about the last day of school. It gives us a bit of closure on the year and wraps it up beautifully!

Oh, and another big benefit is that this activity is low-prep, so even if your classroom is just about packed up, you can still reflect on those last day feelings and complete this activity with your kiddos! It’s differentiated for kindergarten through second grade and is also easy to adapt, depending on the length of time you have to complete it. If you’re looking for a quick activity to wrap up the last day, this will fit the bill! If you have a little more time and want to stretch it out with additional reflection, that will work too! Now, let’s take a closer look at the activities in this resource.

Explore Last Day Feelings as a Group

Share "Last Day Blues" with your students on Youtube.

As I mentioned, the main idea of this activity is to reflect at the end of the school year. The goal is to get students thinking about how they feel and why. I love discussing this as a group with my students. To kick things off, I always read a book to get the conversation rolling. Last Day Blues is our favorite, but there are so many other great options out there that would work well, so feel free to use what you have access to. If you’re planning this activity in a short amount of time, you can always use a video read aloud of a book instead. Here’s one that would be perfect to project up on the board.

After reading a book, ask your students if anyone wants to share how they are feeling. You might offer your own feelings first and say something like, I am happy to see my students finish out such a great year of learning! This helps kiddos understand that what we’re focused on here is to identify what we’re feeling and why. Then, let a few volunteers share their own feelings.

You can structure this time however you like. In the past, we’ve simply discussed feelings for a while. I’ve also drawn simple pictures on the board as kiddos talk to illustrate their feelings. For example, if someone says they are excited for summer, I might draw a happy sun on the board. Either option is great, so feel free to tailor this time to your kiddos.

Graphing Our Feelings

Students can share their last day feelings and add it to a graph.

At this point, we take some time to graph our individual feelings. I create an anchor chart with the heading “Last Day Feelings”. The categories included are excited, happy, nervous, and sad. Each child gets a blank face that they can use to draw their feelings. There’s also a spot for them to write the word. Then, they place it on the anchor chart under the category that matches their own. We count how many we have for each category and take note of this.

At this point, you can also pull out your First Day Feelings Chart to compare, if you did this activity and saved it from the beginning of the year. It’s fun to have each child find their feeling face on the graph from the beginning of the year and compare it to the end of the year. You can make this activity as long or short as you need to, which is great because I know every classroom has different attention spans and time constraints!

Write About Last Day Feelings

This resource includes differentiated last day feelings prompts so you can choose the one that works best for your students.

After creating our chart and discussing our feelings in depth, I send students off to do a little writing about it. They each get a worksheet where they can record how they feel. In my Last Day Feelings resource, I have included 6 differentiated worksheets to meet the needs of a variety of levels. Students can draw, label, or write their feelings on their page. This makes a fun keepsake for parents as well, so I always make sure these pages get sent home when we’re done!

I love that this activity is a simple, yet meaningful way to explore how we’re feeling. It’s super low-prep, which is perfect for the last day of school. Plus, the variety of worksheet options means that it works for students in kindergarten through second grade. It’s especially fun if you start out the year with the first day feelings activity, too. What a great way to tie it all together and bring those emotions full circle!

First Day and Last Day Feelings

If you’d like to get ahead of the game and plan on using both the First Day and Last Day Feelings activities, I know you will love the resource bundle! Inside, you get both of my graphing and reflection resources that you can use with your students. If you go this route, I highly recommend saving your first day anchor chart so that you can pull it out and reflect at the end of the school year. It’s so much fun to compare and discuss differences with your kiddos. So, be sure to check out the bundle of these resources. You’ll save big and be able to tie it all together!