Graduation Candy Ideas and Virtual End of Year Activities

4 min reading time

We put together a list of popular Virtual End of Year Activities for teachers and even parents to help to make the most of these final days of school during these trying times. These ideas will help you plan your virtual end of the year activities for your class.

1. HAVE A VIRTUAL CLASS PARTY!

Do a Google Meet or a Zoom call and celebrate as a class. Find games on Pinterest you can play on your group call, or make a slideshow of pictures from the year. Send out a scavenger hunt list ahead of time, or have students dress as in costumes.

You can also have students decorate their background in a party theme and you decorate yours too! There are lots of Zoom backgrounds to choose from and students can find one they like.

2. DIGITAL MEMORY BOOKS

These memory books will keep your students writing as the year winds down.

Assign one page per day or have students work on the entire digital memory book at their own pace. Once completed, you can print them out and mail them directly to each student. You can also email the personal digital link to your students who can access their memory books.

These will serve as a treasured memento for an unforgettable year.

3. VIRTUAL END-OF-THE-YEAR CANDY AWARDS

You can celebrate all the unique individuals in your class with Candy Awards! Reward your students and staff and send them something sweet before summer. Here are a few sweet ideas: Nerds or Smarties Award: For your intelligence & hard work in the classroom, Skittles Award: For always being full of colorful ideas!, M&Ms Award: For being a marvelous and magnificent student! Snickers Award: For your sense of humor and your ability to make others laugh, Starbursts Award: You are a STAR BURSTing with enthusiasm, Gummi Bears Award: We are BEARY glad you are part of our staff! You can find a lot more suggestions on Pinterest.

After sharing your computer screen during your virtual awards ceremony, send each student and teacher their special award!

4. DO END OF THE YEAR SPIRIT WEEK

What’s the last week of school without theme days? Theme days are always a favorite end of the year activity and easy to do during distance learning. Make a simple last week of school schedule with a theme for each day and send it home to students. Some fun ideas are book character day, crazy hair day, superhero day, decades day, or movie theme day. Hawaiian day is always a fun one, and so are backwards day, pajama day, and western day. The class can then collectively get on Zoom, Google Meet, or Flipgrid to enjoy the experience together.

5. TEACHER TIKTOK CHALLENGE

Create a new dance and post it as an assignment on Tik Tok, Flipgrid, or another video platform. Have students learn the same dance, and record themselves completing the challenge.

FOR THE CLASS OF 2020: VIRTUAL SOCIAL DISTANCING GRADUATION IDEAS

Create a graduating class message for all by all. Write an inspiring statement that matches the number of words to the number of students in the graduating class. Then ask each student to shoot a short video of themselves saying the one word assigned to them. (An alternative is to write the word on a poster and hold it up for the camera). Students will not know the full message, just the word they are assigned. Put the videos together into a single video message and share it with the graduating class.

Create an Instagram Class of 2020 Yearbook page for your school, and have students submit photos to be included. Classmates, friends, and family can add congratulations via comments.

Drive-By Graduation Candy Party Favors. Create your graduation candy party favors to help thank those "driving by" your quarantine graduation celebration.

District-wide campaign #BeTheLight. Turn on the stadium lights at 8:20 (20:20 military time) for 20 minutes and 20 seconds and play the class song. Ask students and families to post photos using a designated hashtag to social media feeds or send them to the district for posting on the website.

Organize a car parade of graduates through the school parking lot or neighborhood. Families can decorate their cars with the student's name, and graduates can even wear their caps and gowns!