End of school year countdown: An easy and fun way to celebrate at home

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To say that this school year has been completely different than I expected would be an understatement.

I remember all the thoughts that ran through my head at the beginning of the school year, when my son went to his first day of kindergarten. Would he like his teacher? Would he make close friends? Would he enjoy going to school?

Luckily, everything went well and he loved going to school and spending time with his teacher and classmates.

What I never imagined was having to spend the last months of school at home, without his friends, learning in front of a laptop, and missing out on all the fun that kindergarten was supposed to bring.

Last week, after several days of hearing my son complain about how much school work he has, I wanted to cheer him up by telling him that school will soon be over.

But his reaction was totally unexpected.

Instead of being happy about the start of the summer vacation, he looked at me with tears in his eyes. He was sad that he will no longer see his teacher and hear his friends, not even during the online class meetings as he does now.

I gave him a big hug. I felt so sad that his first year of school has to end like this!

In the next days, I thought how I could prepare something special to celebrate the end of the school year, and make him feel better.

I remembered how much he enjoyed the countdown to kindergarten we prepared at the beginning of the school year, so I wanted to create something similar.

This time, instead of including daily activities in the countdown, I prepared small gifts for him to open every day in the last 9 days of school.

How to create an end of school year countdown

If you like the idea of creating an end of school year countdown for your kids, I’ve gathered here all the details about how we prepared it.

What supplies we used for the end of school year countdown:

paper bags (I used these treat bags)

labels for every bag (I made them at home by printing on these labels, but you can also simply cut and paste the pieces of paper on the bags) – you can download the printable template here

small gifts to include in the bags (see more details below).

The countdown bags were very easy to create: In each bag I included a small gift and a note with a message about the gift, then I added the label on the bag.

I chose the little gifts based on what my son likes, but I also tried to find items that we could use together during the summer vacation.

Here are some items you could include in your bags:

Rat-A-Tat-Cat game – a fun card game for the whole family

Sleeping Queens Card Game – another great game for kids (it’s recommended for kids ages 8+ but we decided to try it sooner to see if my son likes it)

SmartGames IQ Twist – a smart travel game with many challenges for kids

Games and Puzzles from the Tree House – my son is a big fan of the “Magic Tree House” series, so I think he will be happy to try the games

Backpack Explorer: On the Nature Trail: What Will You Find? – a lovely field guide to encourage kids to spend more time in nature (this book was too big to fit into the bag, so I just added a few petals and an additional message to let my son know where he can find his gift)

we also included a few Beaker Creatures Reactor Pods (in 3 of the bags), because we have this volcano reactor and my son enjoys discovering new little toys (only buy the pods if you have one of the Beaker Creatures Reactors)