At long last, the unit you were teaching has come to a close. Now what?
Wrap-up activities for students reinforce the main points of a lesson. They're also a great way to check for understanding (and misunderstanding). How can you incorporate creative recap activities into your teaching? For starters, check out these 14 suggestions for post-lesson activities.
Closure activities for students
1. Story stage
Have students—either in a group or individually—dramatize a scene from a book they're reading. This can be easily applied to history lessons too. Observe how well students portray the characters. Are they capturing the character's emotions, motivations, and actions accurately?
2. Take a poll
Gauge understanding of a lesson with the help of an online polling tool The poll could be multiple-choice or open-ended. Here are some examples of wrap-up poll questions: What is one question you have about_______? What is one topic you would like to learn more about? Which activity did you enjoy the most? How would you rate today's lesson? What would have made the lesson better?
3. Gallery walk
Students can put their own unique flair into a poster board featuring highlights from a concept that they learned. Display the posters around the classroom, creating a "gallery" of student work. Provide sticky notes and pens so students can write comments and add them to the gallery as they walk around reading each other's posters. After the walk, start a discussion: What did you notice? What questions do you have? Do you want to share any feedback on your classmates' work?
4. Exit tickets
Tried-and-true exit tickets work wonderfully for a quick wrap-up activity before students head out the door. These can be two-sentence write-ups about what they learned, or a response to a quick true-false question. Here are more exit ticket ideas for you to consider.
5. Share the knowledge
Learning by teaching is an effective way to reinforce understanding of a concept. If possible, have your students teach the concept to students in a lower grade. This will give your students confidence in the topic and allow them to look at it from a different perspective. Plus, they'll get the chance to answer questions which may cause them to think more deeply about the concept.
6. Think-pair-share
Another closing activity for the classroom is think-pair-share. This activity gets students talking to each other about the lesson you’re wrapping up, even allowing for the sharing of new perspectives. Have your students spend a few silent minutes thinking about the lesson topic, and then pair them with other students to discuss any relevant angles, pros and cons, or strategies.
7. Quiz game show
Reinforce learning with a a quiz game based on information from a topic you're teaching. You can easily create an interactive quiz using an online quiz tool, or write quiz questions on sticky notes and write answers underneath on chart paper or a whiteboard.
8. Slide presentation
Allow students to flex their creative muscles by developing slide presentations that highlight key points from a topic they learned. This is a two-in-one activity: Students will solidify their learning not only when they create their presentation, but also when they watch their peers present. Consider using slides after conducting an experiment to show the results with graphs or a series of documenting pictures.
9. Expert talks
When wrapping up a topic, consider having students conduct their own lectures. Have them zero in on a specific aspect of the lesson, give them some prep time, and then let them each hold a two-minute talk on their newfound expertise.
10. Sell it
Students can record (or present live) a quick advertisement related to the topic you’re wrapping up. For example, if your class learned strategies for division in math class, have them choose a particular strategy to promote in a 30-second ad.
11. Artful reflections
Wrap up a series of lessons by having students create a related piece of art. Students might work together to create a collage that represents key concepts from the lesson. They can use magazines, newspapers, or digital images to demonstrate their understanding. Another idea is to create comics that summarize a lesson or a storyboard of a sequence of events.
12. Model behavior
Creating dioramas and models are fun ways to recap a lesson. Students can piece together their own historically accurate 18th-century fort or village. Or, in science class, they can create awesome models of body parts such as the eye or heart.
13. News broadcast
Students can prepare short newscasts about a topic. Have them sit facing the class at a desk to deliver a special report. They could cover an environmental issue, a scientific discovery, or present a historical event as if it happened that day.
14. Act it out
Challenge students to act out a concept, either in small groups or as a whole class. This works best with science or math topics, in my experience, but if you can apply it to other subjects, go for it! Students can act out division, photosynthesis, the water cycle, and other processes. This will allow your class to see and also participate in a literal rendition of the topic they learned about.
Solidify students’ learning with creative recap activities for the classroom
The fun closure activities for students listed above allow both students and teachers alike to feel a sense of celebration and accomplishment when wrapping up one idea or topic and moving on to the next. These will be memorable experiences for your students, allowing them to solidify their learning and transition more smoothly to the next piece of the puzzle.
This article was adapted from a blog post initially developed by the education technology company Classcraft, which was acquired by HMH in 2023. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of HMH.
***
Find more lesson plans and classroom resources on Shaped.
Download our FREE calendar of activities!