Strategies for End of Year Review in Kindergarten

As the school year winds down, there's one item that's sure to be on your weekly lesson plans: review. You may be feeling the overwhelm of reviewing all of the skills learned throughout the year in just a few weeks. Let's ditch the stress! These end of year review strategies will help you seamlessly incorporate review and fun into your day.

Morning Work and Early Finishers

Some of the best times of day to incorporate end of year review is during your morning work time and early finisher time. These are two times of day that you can easily squeeze in review without having to make changes to your classroom schedule.

Morning work and early finisher time is perfect for reviewing because you don't have to explicitly teach any new skills. Simply go over the directions with students and give them time to practice material they have previously learned.

When students work independently, you can differentiate to meet students needs and meet students where they are. If you have students who need more support on certain skills, you can work with them 1:1 or in a group while other students work independently.

One of my favorite review activities for morning work and early finisher activities is the Kindergarten Summer Packet. This resource reviews the essential literacy and math skills students learned this year. It has over 100 print-and-go activities, covering topics like CVC words, writing, addition, shapes, and more.

If you're students need an extra challenge, give them the First Grade Summer Packet to push their skills even further. You can also send these packets how during the summer, so students can keep their skills fresh.

Calendar Time

Calendar time isn't just useful for saying the date and determining the weather. It's also an awesome opportunity to sneak in a little review. Some of the ways you can add a review to your calendar time are:

• Count the days of school
• Count the number of days until the next student's birthday or school event
• Show the number of the day on a 100s chart or by writing it on a whiteboard
• Model the number of the day with straws or base ten blocks
• Choose a number and count on to 100
• Sing the ABC's song
• Practice rhyming words by saying a word and having students recite rhyming words (can use CVC or CVCe words)
• Write word family words on whiteboards (can use CVC or CVCe words)
• Play a sight word review game, such as Sight Word Clues
• Dance and sing to an educational brain break or video

If you want more direct review of CVC words, try these No Prep CVC Worksheets. It's the perfect activity to squeeze in a bit of extra practice with students, with no-prep from you! You'll have 35 different activities to choose from.

Mini Lessons

At the end of the year, you may want to reteach and review concepts more in depth, but you don't have time to devote an entire math or literacy lesson to the concept. A great way to reteach and review is by using mini lessons. 

Mini lessons allow you to focus on one skill or concept, making it effective for end of year review. Your students will stay on task as the lessons are only about 10-15 minutes long.

Following the mini lesson, have students engage in hands-on practice, so they have an opportunity to apply their learning. Here are a few ways to incorporate hands-on practice after your mini lesson.

Center Rotations

Centers a perfect way to review at the end of the year because you can cover several different skills.

You can also differentiate your centers depending on the skills your students need to practice most. You can split your students into groups and assign them centers to address the skills in need of additional practice. You can even give certain groups more challenging material if they are showing mastery of a skill.

However, I know that preparing several centers, especially when you begin differentiating, can be a challenge. To make things simply, I created May and June Literacy and Math Worksheets to make reviewing skills from the end of the year a breeze.

This resource includes 80 worksheets that review skills like addition to 10, counting on, ordinal numbers, nouns, verbs, reading comprehension, and more. These activities don't require any prep beyond hitting “print”, which make them a great grab-and-go to make center set-up easy.

Games and Play

By the end of the year, your students may be a little antsy. Let's face it, you might be feeling that way, too. Using games in your end of year review is a simple way to get students engaged and add fun to learning.

For example, you can turn a task card set into a scavenger hunt or use white boards to allow students to answer with a group. By adding an interactive element to your review (or anything that gets students up and moving), you'll be doubling the excitement.

One of my favorite ways to review is with math games. This Addition and Subtraction Math Bundle includes nine different games, including solve the code, mystery math, and color by number.

Students will be reviewing their addition and subtraction skills in a hands-on and engaging way with these games. Plus, the prep is simple. Simple print the games and gather the supplies, like colors and manipulatives. Then, you're ready to play!

Emergency Plans

During the last weeks of school, the days are always a bit unusual. With award ceremonies, special celebrations, and shortened schedules, you might find yourself wondering what to plan for students.

Not to mention, as the seasons begin to transition, it seems like everyone is sick. Inevitably, you might have to take a day off in the middle of peek review season.

Luckily, putting together plans is simple with Plans in a Pinch. These no-prep worksheets cover math, literacy, science, and social studies skills! These are great for last minute planning, whether you are out sick or need something quick and easy after a class party.

I recommend printing some of the activities out ahead of time, so if you're ever in need of a quick activity or emergency sub plans, they can be quickly utilized.

I hope these ideas for end of year review leave you feeling more equipped to cover key skills with your students heading into the last few weeks of school.