Staying Focused When the End of the Year is Fast Approaching

Teacher & Student Burnout, Longer Days/Shorter Nights, Spring Sports, insert "...", yes there are many things we teachers face to keep the students focused on learning till the end of the school year. Heck, I personally struggle especially when I turn my desktop calendar page to May and see the

"LAST DAY OF SCHOOL"

in the date square. You'd be lying to yourself if you didn't start your own internal countdown clock. As a tech teacher I can even insert a countdown clock right into this post.

But this post is about staying focused till that last day. I like breaking my final 9 weeks down into segments, have the students focus on giving back to their community with project based learning, and doing lessons that carryover to the summer into next year.

Learning
never
stops!(Click to tweet)

#1 Segments: I know every year that I have Spring Break the 4th quarter, the BIG test week of which I am both a proctor and still teach limited classes, and the 8th grade gets done earlier so their lessons are shortened. Mix in a field day a parish wide fundraiser and #1 is done.

#2 PBL Community Service Project: In the 5th grade we learn how to set Google Slides up for storybook/e-book creating. I have provided links at the end of this post to the Google Trainers I utilized to teach these lessons and YouTube videos I watched. I work with the 5th grade teachers on this project because we actually print these books and then the students make a shoe box gift for a foster child who is in The CALL program.

No waiting children in foster care in Arkansas

This collaborative project teaches the students that Slides is not just for presentations. We go BEYOND our classroom walls by informing the students about foster kids currently awaiting adoption in central Arkansas. This project keeps them focused for both me and their classroom teachers as the last weeks of school start happening. Plus, creating a small shoe box gift to accompany the newly created storybook is a great inexpensive way to give something of themselves to this program.

#3 Lesson Carryover: In Jr. High I love introducing students to the wonder of stop motion with Google Slides (Look below for the links!) and a coding language moving beyond blocks. I do this because these kids then have the opportunity to carryover what they are learning in class by attending summer camps and/or enrolling in online learning to go deeper than what I can do in class. Some of these kids know what and have done stop motion with their cameras by moving Lego toys for example but most of them have never done online animation. My hopes are that some will explore future careers in this area. In the meantime it's something fun to do to keep them focused till exams. This year I'm going BEYOND my classroom walls and posting to another blog their finished projects. To make the blog, they have to follow the guidelines for being published and produce quality work. 7th Stop Motion Projects is its name. You are invited to leave a TAG comment. The final nine weeks with 8th grade I utilize Code.org's CS Discoveries Animation and Games unit which introduces the students to the coding language JavaScript.

This is a free curriculum that has lesson plans for me and ease of use for the kids since not all kids love coding but I want all kids to experience coding. These topics, like I said, carryover to summer camps and online learning which I have placed links below for my area, but you can do a search for your college and tech companies in your area.

Remember the struggle will always be real but keep yourself focused by breaking the nine weeks down into manageable segments. Try out project based learning with your kids that also involves a community service project keeps the kids focused and teaches how we should help others. Finally, do lessons that carryover into summer so the kids keep learning and growing.