Hands down, my favorite Last Day of School tradition is our End of Year Awards Ceremony. I lay out the red (butcher paper) carpet, turn on the disco lights, cue the Hollywood Award Show music, and grab my microphone for announcing each student’s name. It’s a massive hit. And it just feels right as a way to end and celebrate our year together. Below I’ll tell you more about this precious tradition so you can bring it to life in your own classroom!
What are End of Year Awards?
End of Year Awards are certificates given to each student in the class to recognize the unique gifts and skills they brought to your classroom throughout the year. The awards can be chosen by the teacher alone or voted on as a class prior to the Class Awards Ceremony.
Why give out End of Year Awards?
Giving out End of Year Awards is a lovely way to show each student they are seen and appreciated for who they are as they leave your classroom. The awards you pick for each student are thoughtfully chosen and meaningful because they celebrate each student’s strengths.
How are End of Year Awards Selected?
In my classroom, I aim to give each student 2-3 awards to recognize multiple gifts. I use a big list of awards as a starting point, assigning two students per award. Additionally, I have my students help me select the award winners by filling out a Voting Ballot a week prior to the awards! They love getting to cast their vote for their most deserving classmate. I reference this when I feel stuck on who should win a particular award.
What Awards are Given?
Though the possibilities here are endless, I have a core list of “go-to” awards I always start with. Occasionally, I’ll have an out of the box award idea I choose to add in if it fits a particular student (I once gave an award for “Most Likely to go to the Library” for a student who constantly wanted to change out their books!) Below is a list of the main awards I start with each year:
- Fantastic Friend
- Happy Helper
- Remarkable Reader
- Loyal Listener
- Future Teacher
- Aspiring Author
- Pizza my Heart
- Animal Lover
- Social Studies Scholar
- Always Trustworthy
- Amazing Artist
- Excellent Encourager
- Magnificent Mathematician
- Terrific Team Player
- Star Singer
- Always Smiling
- Sweet as Pie
- Best Laugh
- Hard Worker
- Awesome Athlete
- Grateful Heart
- Super Scientist
- Best Dressed
- Ms. & Mr. Manners
- Computer Whiz
- Always on Time
- Most Inquisitive
- Neatest Desk
- Best Handwriting
- Homework All Star
- Most Responsible
- Most Improved Reader
- Most Improved Mathematician
- Most Talkative
- Heart of Gold
- Best Jokes
- Brilliant Brain
- Clever Thinker
- Problem Solver
- Humble Heart
- Strong Storyteller
- Most Friendly
- Caring Classmate
- Generous Giver
- Famous in the Future
- Best Smile
- Super Speller
- Most Organized
- Fabulous Focus
- Most Grit
- Quiet Hallway Hero
- Best Dancer
- Fun to Play With
- Future Nurse
- Busy Bee
- Social Butterfly
- Ray of Sunshine
- Earth Lover
- Clean Up Super Star
- Class Comedian
- Pencil Challenge Master
- Always Respectful
- Natural Leader
- Excellent Character
How do you Prepare Student Awards?
This is the part I’ve been most excited to tell you about! It used to take me several HOURS to prep my awards. Now it takes me about 30 minutes! What’s responsible for the change, you ask?!
AUTOFILL. Wow wow wow it changed the game. Using an autofill template allows you to insert your award winner name, date, and teacher name ONCE and have it auto-populate perfectly on the award certificate!! No more scrolling through each page to fill out the names!! In addition, this helps you see all the awards on just a few pages so you can best count up the number of awards each student is receiving.
See it in action via the video below!
When do you have the Awards Ceremony?
As I mentioned earlier, I prefer to save the Awards Ceremony for the last day of school. My sentimental heart loves the closure and celebratory feel this brings. However, I have had years where multiple students were scheduled to be gone on early vacations on the last day. Thus, in some cases we did our awards on the second to last day of school.
Ready to make your End of Year Awards?!
Make your life easy with my End of Year Autofill Awards Template! You’ll also receive my Google Form Voting Ballot Template and Google Awards Slides to display during your Awards Show. See more by clicking the image below!
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do you have a template for the google form? i’d love to do this and have students vote, but wondering how you do that?
Yes, that is included inside the resource! I make a drop down with every student’s name so they just have to select them from the list (instead of typing their name over and over.)