END-OF-YEAR ACTIVITIES

12 Meaningful and Affordable End-of-Year Student Gifts

18 May 2024/ By Zineb DJOUB

The end of the year is a time to recognize and appreciate students’ efforts and accomplishments. While it’s important to appreciate and encourage our students throughout the year, those final days at school are exceptional. They are memorable and filled with joy and excitement. End-of-year student gifts can be powerful tools to boost students’ motivation and self-confidence. So, what kinds of student gifts should we offer?

Before answering this question, let’s first discuss the benefits of gift-giving and determine the students who should be gifted at the end of the year.

The benefits of gift-giving

Gift-giving can have a positive impact on students’ well-being. Research has shown that offering students gifts to reward their achievements is a powerful tool to boost their self-esteem, motivation, and sense of belonging.

Besides, gift-giving among peers can be an effective way to promote inclusivity and foster connections and a sense of community.

However, gifts are not just a source of happiness for students, but also for teachers. According to psychology and neuroscience, giving gifts to others can be a highly rewarding experience that can bring happiness to both ourselves and others.

Who should be gifted?

End-of-year students’ gifts are the tools to reward and appreciate our students. Yet, we should value more positive attitudes, hard work, and efforts instead of focusing just on outcomes or achievements. This encourages all students to feel recognized and appreciated for their unique contributions.

So, you can create different gift categories. For instance, you can offer gifts for students who:

• Show kindness throughout the year.
• Persevere through difficult tasks.
• Reach a challenging goal.
• Have a positive attitude.
• Show responsibility.
• Show leadership skills, or teamwork and collaboration skills.

End-of-year students’ gift ideas

Selecting the right end-of-year student gifts is an important decision to make. It’s crucial to choose gifts that are appropriate and unlikely to cause confusion or misunderstanding.

A male teacher was recently suspended for offering his female student an expensive gift (a smartwatch) which highlights the need for careful consideration.

So, to help you out with such a process, here are some end-of-year student gift ideas that are appropriate, meaningful and also affordable. They include individual student gifts and whole-class gifts.

Individual student gift ideas

To choose your end-of-year student gifts, think always of students’ interests and needs. Here are some suggestions.

1. Classroom supplies

You can offer students classroom supplies such as colourful notebooks, fun pens, or art supplies. Customizing these items with the student’s name or a motivational phrase is also a good idea.

2. Thank-you messages or letters

Writing heartfelt messages or letters to students can make them proud of themselves, and willing to invest in learning. In these handwritten messages or letters, you can highlight students’ strengths, attitudes, and memorable moments from the year that make them more admired.

3. Books

Your end-of-year student gifts can also include books that are age-appropriate and align with the interests of your students. For instance, these can be short stories, novels, guidebooks, or resources for next year’s learning of a given subject. You can even include a personalized message on the cover.

4. Certificates and/or badges

We can recognize students’ achievements, efforts, and positive qualities by offering them certificates and/or badges. Various tools can help create certificates and badges such as Canva, Adobe Spark, Zazzle, Vistaprint, and Credly.

Besides indicating his/her name, you can add the unique qualities or achievements of a student such as “Genius Mind”, “Kindness Ambassador”, “Powerful Leader”, etc.

5. Journals

Offering journals as gifts can encourage students to document their thoughts and experiences, set goals, practice mindfulness and enhance their mental well-being.

Amazon offers a wide variety of journals you can purchase for your students such as My First Gratitude Journal, and Q&A a Day for Kids: A Three-Year Journal

Further, it’s a good idea to personalize those journals by adding the student’s name or a special message on the cover. Etsy offers customizable journal options. Check out Personalized Leather Journal

There are also educational journals like STEM Activity Journal and Reading Log Journal. I can’t forget to mention Paper Store’s high-quality journals.

You can also find a range of journals that are both budget-friendly and varied in style at Walmart and Target.

6. Class memory book

Throughout the school year, compile a booklet with photos, drawings, and messages from experiences you had with your students. You can offer it as a collective memory gift to a student to remember those moments.

7. Educational games or puzzles

Offering students educational games or puzzles as gifts can encourage them to learn and entertain during the summer holiday.

These include board games, card games, stem games puzzles, word games, and educational toys that you can purchase from a variety of online and physical retailers.

Selecting educational games or puzzles depends on students’ interests or academic strengths.

8. Sports equipment

To encourage activity and outdoor fun, you can offer students small items like jump ropes, frisbees, mini soccer balls, tennis balls, hand grippers, bean bags, yoga mats, etc.

Whole-class gift ideas

Incorporating a whole-class gift can be a fun and memorable way to celebrate the end of the school year while fostering a sense of community among students. Here are some whole-class gift ideas.

9. A selfie with the teacher

Taking a photo with the teacher can serve as a tangible memory of the time students spent in your class. Every student can receive this gift.

Inform students ahead about the date of taking selfies so that they can dress accordingly if they want. You can also decorate the classroom.

After taking a selfie with each student, edit the photos for quality, add any personalized touch, and print them out if providing physical copies.

To make your selfies more special, add a handwritten note on the back of a printed photo or a digital message if shared electronically.

If your class is large or taking individual selfies is time-consuming, you can instead take a group selfie with the entire class. Then print it out in a large format, frame it, and hand out a copy to each student individually.

10. A class poster

Another idea for a whole-class gift is creating a poster for students to write their messages and impressions of the year’s learning, along with their signatures, and then taking a group picture or shooting a video with the poster.

Besides encouraging students’ reflection and building connections, this gift is a lasting memory that students can look back on.

To prepare your poster you need a large poster board or a roll of butcher paper, markers, stickers, and any other decorative items. You can give your poster a title, such as “Memories of Year+ Class Name”.

Pre-draw boxes or circles for each student to write in and decorate the borders. You can provide students with some prompts to help them write their messages like “A funny moment I’ll never forget…”, “I love when…”, “ I learned how ….”, “I like my teacher when..”, etc.

Allow time for all students to write their messages then select the right classroom area for the photo. Every student should be included in the picture while the poster is visible in the background.  If you shoot a video, students can sing a song as a group.

Make digital copies of the group picture or the video to share with students and their families.

11. Peer gifting

Peer gifting is a powerful tool to foster a sense of community and friendship. So, encourage students at the end of the year to exchange gifts.

Inform them in advance about the peer gifting date so that they can select their peer and decide on their gifts.

It’s also necessary to discuss the value of peer gifting and the need to offer simple gifts that strengthen friendships.

You can help students in selecting their gifts by offering them options. For instance, they can exchange friendship bracelets, personalized keychains, small, travel-sized board games, activity books, potted plants, books, and positive notes.

12. An end-of-year school experience

An end-of-year experience can be a great memorable and meaningful gift for our students and a source of happiness for both of us. Researchers found that socially shared experiences had a higher impact on happiness than spending money on solitary experiences or material possessions.

End-of-year school experiences can range from celebrations and educational workshops to field trips, outdoor activities (sports day, picnic, and games), and community service projects.

Yet, be sure to plan and get both students and parents involved.

These were some of the end-of-year student gifts that are educational, fun, and reflective of the year’s learning. By combining individual student gifts with a whole-class gift, you can create a balanced and inclusive approach to celebrating the end of the school year.

Remember that gifting students is not just an act of kindness and gratitude, but it’s also a way to show that we care about them and value their growth until the end.