End of the Year Activities for Literature & English Classes!

I'm sad the year is coming to an end.  Truly.  Switching to this school has been fantastic.  I hope I can be here for awhile.  This year is especially hard because not only have I really connected with these kids, but I have seen so much growth.  Serious growth.  This weekend as I was lesson planning, I started to think about how much I want the kids to recognize their own growth.  I started pulling out all of my old "end of the year" activities, that to be honest, were simply filler activities to get through the last week of school, and I realized that they all had one of the three criteria that I wanted for the end of this year: they were fun.  But I realized that they were missing a genuine connection to our classwork from this year.  I didn't just want them to be fun, but I want the students to have a chance to apply what they have learned and reflect upon how far they have come this year.  I wish I could be the 7th grade teacher who gets to teach them next year.  They are so prepared.  Anyway, I took all of those activities and reworked them so that they would have all three of the pieces I wanted.

One of my favorite activities is a Literature Class Mosaic.  Our school completed an awesome activity this year where every student in the school contributed to a mosaic mural of our building.  It was breathtaking.  (Not exaggerating at all here - when I first saw it all put together I got chills.)

To continue with that idea, I created an activity where the kids create a square about their favorite things from the year: a class novel, favorite quote, characters, favorite assignment, etc.  I plan to put the board together and have it up in my room to start next year.  I'm super excited to do this.  I think it will be especially great for open house.

All of these activities can be found in a set in my TPT store; however, I'm going to put the mosaic activity up as a freebie.  The set includes all sorts of things: plot diagram of the year, letter writing activities, Top 5 lists, making connections, etc., etc..  Looking forward to a great month of May!

~L


Here's the freebie-

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Literature-Class-Mosaic-FREEBIE-3141249

And here is my full set of activities:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/End-of-the-Year-ELA-Activities-3140515