Popsicle End of the Year Craft for Kindergarten
Let’s face it: Engaging students in the final weeks before summer can be tough! This is a great time to create some crafts with your students! An adorable summer craft is perfect for keeping little hands busy and engaged. Plus, you can continue to sneak in important skill practice! You and your students will love this Popsicle End of the Year Craft for Kindergarten!
Benefits of End of the Year Crafts
In addition to keeping your students engaged, there are a few other reasons why crafts are especially helpful at the end of the school year.
- Seasonal Excitement: As summer approaches, you can feel the excitement in the classroom! Summer-themed crafts are a good way to help students channel some of that excitement into a productive activity. Plus, crafts can bring some seasonal fun to your classroom without a lot of extra prep work.
- Easy Bulletin Board: Many teachers like to keep items on the bulletin board through the end of the school year to maintain a sense of normalcy for their students. Crafts make it easier to do this, especially when prep time is limited!
- Kindergarten Memento: Summer-themed crafts can be fun mementos for your students to take home at the end of the year.
- Celebrate Growth: Kindergarteners grow so much over the course of one school year! Creating a craft at the end of the school year helps students celebrate how much they have learned and grown.
If you want to add a quick craftivity to your end of the year lesson plans, you’ll definitely want to grab my free popsicle craft!
Popsicle End of the Year Craft for Kindergarten
This summer popsicle craft is always a hit with students! They can write about what they are looking forward to doing during the summer, then turn their writing into adorable little popsicles!
This craft comes with popsicle-shaped writing template as well as a coordinating popsicle template that serves as the cover. After writing a sentence about what they want to do during the summer, students can staple a colorful popsicle to the front of their writing. Then it’s ready for a large popsicle stick! That’s all you need to take advantage of the benefits of crafting during the end of the school year.
To save even more time and effort, here are some tips to help this craft project go smoothly in your classroom:
1. Have a Variety of Color Options
As I mentioned above, keeping students engaged during the last few weeks of school can be a challenge! A simple way to grab students’ attention is to offer them a choice. When students can create a popsicle craft in one of their favorite colors, they’ll be excited to get started. Just print your free summer popsicle templates in a variety of color options that your students will love!
2. Brainstorm Before Writing
Taking a moment to brainstorm before writing will go a long way in keeping students engaged in this activity! You can model a few sentences for your students before asking them what they want to write about.
I always have my students tell me their sentences before I hand out the writing paper. This ensures that their sentence makes sense and that they don’t just sit and twiddle their thumbs after I pass out the papers. ?
3. Display the Sentence Starter
Even after saying the sentence out loud, some students will need a reminder of how the sentence should start. Displaying the sentence starter on the board is a helpful way to keep students on track! I like to use the sentence starter of “This summer I…” but you can choose anything that would work well for your class.
In fact, you might decide to use this popsicle template for another writing activity! One example is adjective practice! Students can come up with different words to describe a popsicle. You could even bring some popsicle samples for an inspirational taste test!
4. Encourage “Best Guess” Spelling
At the end of the year, most students will be comfortable using their phonics knowledge to attempt spelling unfamiliar words. It’s always a good idea to continue to practice this skill, especially as students get ready for first grade.
An added bonus of using “best guess” spelling is that this could serve as a short writing sample that you can use for informal assessment at the end of the year.
5. Illustrate
It’s always a fun addition to have students illustrate their sentences about what they want to do this summer. This is just another way to show how much they have grown!
I’m always impressed by the level of detail that students add to their drawings by the time spring rolls around. Plus, the illustration step is helpful in keeping students engaged as they wait for the other students to finish their writing.
I hope that these tips will help you create this end of the year craft in your classroom! It’s sure to get you and your students in the summer spirit!
Free End of the Year Craft for Kindergarten
If you’re interested in doing this craft with your class, you can click below to download your free templates.
Just print the popsicle on several different colors of construction paper and the writing page on white paper. Then staple them together and attach a popsicle stick! Easy peasy!
Summer Popsicle Craft – FREE Download
More End of the Year Kindergarten Crafts
Are you looking for even more crafts to keep your students engaged during the last few weeks of school? You’ll definitely want to check out my blog post with crafts for every month of the school year. At the end of the post, you’ll find adorable craftivities that are the perfect way to end the year!
Save This Free Popsicle Craft for Kindergarten
Be sure to save this post so you can easily find it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite teaching board on Pinterest. You can quickly grab this free craft template when you’re looking for a way to keep your students engaged at the end of the year.
