5th Grade End of the Year Gifts

Do you give your students an end of the year gift? I know many who teachers do and do not.

Honestly, I was torn about what to do this year. After reflecting on my class behavior this year and how much I already did for them, did I really want to do more? Don't get me wrong, I love my class. However there were so many times where they either expected something or were ungrateful for what they received. 

Typically I love giving my students a gift, typically a $1 book from Scholastic. You can click here to see what I gave my Kinders last year.

At the end of the day, I did decide to do something because this would be the last thing they would ever receive from me. So here's what I decided to do. 

After discussing with a teacher friend, she told me that she does a Wordle gift for the end of the year. Boom. Done. Easy no expense, if I don't buy a frame. And it is meaningful.

Set Up

I wanted this to also be a gift that the class had some say in. So one day I had a sub and I had her this with them.

I had the students complete a Character Scoot around the room. Each student had a sheet with their name on the top, which they would leave on their desk. Then they would scoot around the room and write 1-2 (kind) words that they associated with that person. 

Want to make your character scoot a little interactive. Ashley Schroeder has an adorable resource on TpT.

Don't want to do a scoot? You can set up this sheet like Confessions of a Teaching Junkie did.

In the end I would just need to grab the papers and put the words right into my word cloud.

Creating the Word Cloud

There are many different programs that can be used to create a word cloud. I made mine through www.wordclouds.com. After I typed in the words I selected to have the shape be the first letter in their name.

Word Cloud Example

I then saved the image and printed it at home on my color printer, because HP Instant Ink Rocks.

I did decide to purchase frames from the Dollar Store. (picture to come) So all in all this gift cost me $1 per student.

So why did I finally decide to do a gift? This quote explains it all.

More Ideas

There are so many ideas on pinterest that it can be hard to decide what to do for your students.  Check out some free tags I have found below!

How bright and colorful are these tags from The Printable Princess?!

I think I might use the post-it one this year as I am changing grades!