The end of the school year is right around the corner, if it’s not already here for you.
I know that you and your students are spent. The days have gone on and on. There is little focus left in the classroom each day, but you need to maintain the routine and work until the last day or no one will make it.
The end of the school provides us and our students with a natural time to reflect on the year and wrap it up in a nice bow. To make everyone’s life simpler it’s best to focus on lessons that will help your students reflect on the year in an easy way. Poetry is a great tool to help your students reflect on the school year.
3 Reasons to End the Year With Poetry
- It’s Short and Fun
Poetry is the perfect way to end your school year because the lessons are short and fun. I have been in the classroom on those hot days at the end of the year. Students are staring out the windows waiting for recess. They are melting from the heat, dreaming of swimming and hanging out with friends.
It’s so tough to accomplish anything during these last weeks. But if you don’t keep your students on task and push forward with some sort of learning, chaos will reign.
Be honest, you will not be writing essays at this point in the school year. They will be written poorly or not even get finished. Instead, turn your teaching towards poetry. It’s the break from rigor, but still teaches students a lot about writing.
You can choose a focus like figurative language or silly poems to keep students engaged. They will learn about different writing devices and poetry. It will also be so much more fun to wrap up the school year with a different kind of writing.
- Reflect on the School Year
I love short and silly poems. They are great for the end of the school year. But I also know that I always want my students to reflect on their learning, so I mix reflection into my poetry lessons. Reflection is a huge part of the learning process. If we reflect then we continue to do things that worked and can try to change things that didn’t. The end of the school year is a great time to reflect.
I mean as teachers we have to do this for report cards, but our students should do it too. However, getting them to write a reflection essay or questionnaire as they melt in their chairs seems a little torturous.
Poetry allows students to reflect on the school year in a fun way. There are so many types of poems that would allow you to do this. I have two lessons that I’ve created.
- Our School Sensory Poem
- My Our School Sensory Poem has four ways you can use it. One way is that students think about their favorite thing each quarter and describe it using sensory details. They will learn about writing with sensory detail and reflect on the school year at the same time. And it’s torture-free. This is a FREE lesson if you choose to opt-in it will be delivered to your inbox.
- Ode to the School Year
- In this lesson, students will write an Ode to the School Year that they have completed. An ode is meant to glorify and exalt something, in this case, it’s the school year. It’s a celebration of their best moments and memories. Ode to the School Year available in my TpT store, just click the link.
Poetry is a great reflection tool, students can reflect on their school year in a positive and fun way.
- Sending Students Home With One Last Wow
The final reason is love to end the year with a poem is that it sends students home with one more masterpiece for their parents to love. At this age, so many parents are just dying to hear more about the school day and year from their kids. The conversations have turned into “How was school?” “Fine.”
Parents would love to read the details of some of their favorite school moments creatively. And their end of year reflection essays often turn into a list. Aren’t we all so done with list writing like, “we did this, then that, then this?”
Students will be surprised at how incredible their final piece of writing is too. Parents will be surprised at how great their child can write poetry and about the great moments they had at school.
You get some perks from this final piece of writing too, I hope. It’s always great for the principal to hear great things about teachers. When you send your students home with one final beautifully written piece to share with their families, the parents want to call and brag. If your contract is up for renewal having parents call and say how wonderful the year ended can’t hurt.
I hope you’ll mix some poetry into your end-of-the-school-year lessons. Everyone deserves to have a little bit of fun and reflection mixed into one beautiful lesson. If you want a variety of easy-to-assign poetry lessons you can check out the poetry section of my TpT Store.