This is what I’ve been saying to students and colleagues lately: the last Hoorah. I’m tired. The students are tired. Teachers and students everywhere are tired. Yet, the work is not finished. There are reviews to conduct, exams to administer and assess, reports to write, end-of-year festivities and meetings to attend…it all becomes just too much.Still, I somehow muster up the energy, as do most of my students.

Energy levels for both the students and me were especially low on Friday; the pending long weekend was a significant factor, along with the aforementioned. So, yesterday’s classes combined final exam review with games. We did a whole-class version of tic-tac-toe to review direct and indirect object pronouns. Additionally, we played Lotería to review vocabulary from several chapters ago. Last, we did a variation of the classic children’s game, “Musical Chairs”, to practice questions. The students were not only fully engaged, but they were also (re)learning.

The best part? The students were doing the work, a.k.a. The heavy lifting.