How do you celebrate the end of the school year?

Five more days. No more agendas or spelling tests or reams of art work. I wish I could say we’d be finished with packed lunches too, but camps await Anna. (I’m so glad that we have this last summer of Avery being in daycare, so I haven’t had to stitch together a camp/grandparent/vacation day plan for her.)

Anna’s pretty pumped for the last day of school. And while Avery’s day-to-day won’t change, she’s thrilled to become an SK. I’m very proud of both of them and all they’ve accomplished this year.

But then, this from Anna: “How are we going to celebrate the end of school?”

Hmmm… How indeed? Celebrating the end of school seems like something we should do. Last June, Anna had a big SK graduation ceremony, which marked the occasion with lots of pomp and excitement (she was surprised to learn this year that she doesn’t get a “graduation” after every grade).

I wondered if I should be buying the girls a gift, or taking them somewhere to do something special. They’ve always wanted to do Build-a-Bear, for example. And I have some gifts stashed away (books and things) and this would give me a good reason to give them to the girls. But I’m not sure if I should set the precedent. At the same time, I want to let them know I’m proud of all their hard work this year and know that it is something to celebrate. I remember my parents taking us to Dairy Queen on the last day of school and letting us get whatever we wanted. That was pretty thrilling at the time.

I asked Anna what she had in mind for celebrating. “Let’s make a cake!” she exclaimed. “Or maybe we could go out for dinner!”

So I guess we better decide what our end-of-year tradition will be.

How do you mark the end of a school year with your kids? Do you give them gifts or do anything special? Our comments are turned off, so tweet me @T_Chappell.