Ideas to finish preschool English lessons

There are many ways to start a lesson, to warm up the students, but not so many things have been said about lessons endings and many teachers are not aware of the importance of good lesson finishing.

Below I’ll share some ideas on how you can finish preschool English lessons on a positive note.

• Praise and motivation

You can make a tradition or “routine” of giving rewards to kids at the end of the lessons. That can be some nice pictures, stickers or just praising sincerely and for specific tasks children have done. Prepare a board with special prizes or nominations. You can set different ones for each lesson so kids get motivated to get a prize or win in certain nominations. For example, “the fastest in games”, or “best behaviour”, or “gets most points”.

• Mission accomplished

Have a purpose at the beginning of the lesson, for example, you have a topic “Furniture” and you “build a part of a house” every time kids complete a task. You can use bricks for that. By the end of the lesson, learners can see a big house they’ve built.

• Goodbye circle

Along with “Hello circle”, do a “Goodbye circle” activity. Spend two last minutes listening to a happy song and dancing (for example, “Hockey Pockey”, “If you are happy and you know it clap your hands”, “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush”). Have kids mime the songs.

• Chants

If you learn chants with kids, finish the lesson revising the chant several times. Have kids say it faster and louder each time. Or you can split learners into two teams and you work as a conductor. When you point at one team, they say the chant very fast or loudly, then you suddenly point at another team and they say it very slowly or quietly.

• Goodbye stories

Use a story that ends with a character saying goodbye or you can modify a story this way. As a result, kids naturally saying goodbye to the characters and each other.

• Give it back

When I teach preschool children, I have lots of materials in class, e.g. toys, flashcards, puppets, badges, stickers, motivation pictures, stars for points, etc. When they leave the classroom, I ask learners to give me back everything they’ve got. This is an interactive way of ending the lesson. Moreover, you can do it as a game: the one who gives all the things faster/first is the winner. In addition, you can recycle the vocabulary using this activity. For example, you teach animals. And you give an animal for each kid during the lesson. When they give it back to you, they have to name an animal again. You can play it as a “Snowball” game. Make a line, the first child that gives you an animal, names only his/her object; the next one names the animal of the previous kid and his/her one and so on. If they miss a word, they go back to the line again.

• Puppets

Preschool teachers usually use puppets a lot. You can make this as a routine when children say goodbye to the puppet. Puppet can have different ways of saying goodbye for each child: a high-five, a low-five, a “hip” bye, a hug, etc.

• Games

Play different games or quizzes at the end of each lesson. It can be cool down, or, in contrast, an active game to inspire and encourage children. For example, settler activities, clapping games, drilling games, board games, etc.  

• Revision

Ask kids what they remember from the lesson. Do it in a game way too. For example, play “Hot Potato” game; throw a ball to one kid, they say a word they remember and throw the ball to the next child and so on. Or split learners into several teams and they play “Duel”, taking turns in saying words on the topic. The team that remembers more is the winner. Or another idea: let’s say you have a “Food” topic and children need to feed the puppet before they leave, so they name food and give it to the puppet or help the puppet to do shopping.

When you finish your lessons on a positive note, learners leave the class encouraged, glad and in a good mood.