Simple things to help with State Testing

Even though I'm jealous of her weekend Disney cruise, and her Florida weather in general... I'm linking up with my BBB Joanne over at Head Over Heels for Teaching for Spark Student Motivation!

Anyone who knows me knows that I don't love state testing. I'm a firm believer in the fact that good teaching will lead to my kids doing well on any test that is developmentally appropriate for them. I can't control what the state puts in front of them. And I refuse to teach to a test. So instead I challenge my kids every day at their individual levels. 

This is the first year in PA that the test is actually part of my evaluation. I won't get into the billion and one reasons that this is a joke...it's all been said before. But I will say this...I work exceptionally hard for my kids. I do what's best for my kids. I care about my kids. I hold my kids to high expectations. I teach my kids things that matter and things that will help them have a successful and happy life.  If that's not good enough for the state then I suppose they can...well, this is a family friendly blog.

Just a buck in my store! Click
the picture to check 'em out!

Now, I've done my best to give my kids the skills they need to make it in the real world. Despite that, sitting in front of a booklet full of questions for 2 hours a day for 6 days can be a little trying. So I've done some simple things to help the kids make it through. The first is that before we even take the test I'll be handing out our newest brag tag, as seen to the right. As far as I'm concerned, not flipping their desks in revolt is enough to prove that they are Champions.  :)

I'm not convinced that as an adult I could sit there for 30 minutes of instructions being read aloud to me and THEN have to keep sitting there while I worked through the reading passages, extended responses, word problems or whatever for another hour and a half without a little pick-me-up. It's bad enough that I have to walk around and "actively monitor" my kids while a pile of work sits on my desk/laptop that I could be doing. (I mean if I can't be teaching I wish I could at least get something done besides walking around and not looking at my kids' top secret test booklets...)

So as another quick little motivator/built in brain break I've prepared this little set of notes for my kids. Each day they'll get a new note, with a little treat. When they get to the point where they feel like they need to take a break and get a little pick-me-up they can eat the treat!

This set of notes is just a buck in my store too!

I know some teachers really go all out with themes and all that for the state tests. And I admit that I'm envious of them sometimes. But, I have to be honest in the fact that right now I really don't have the time to put together all of that when I have so many academic things I could be putting that energy into. After all, the school year continues for 2 months after these tests end! Maybe as time goes by I'll make a little more stuff each year to make a testing theme one day that is awesome...this year? Nope! But buying some candy, printing off some notes, laminating and cutting some brag tags...I can handle that! 

It's hard to believe that it's going to be two weeks before I can get back to full days of real teaching! And on that note, one final someecard!

Philly Fun and another visit from the Terrible Trivium!

So I survived the longest day of school so far in my career! Last Friday morning I arrived at school at 4:45 AM and began greeting my students around 5AM. By 5:30 we were all loaded on the bus and had begun the long journey to Philadelphia! Later that night, I handed over my last student into the loving arms of her father. It was 10:00 PM. That was a 17 hour school day!

I think the kids really enjoyed themselves. I think they were more excited about the gift shops, the bus ride and eating fast food at a truck stop than they were about the Liberty Bell though!

They did me proud by answering all of the National Park Ranger's questions in Independence Hall! Their behavior was excellent, and no one got lost! All in all, I have to say it was a successful trip!

I only slept til 11 in the morning the next day too!

George W. was a big dude. The life-size statues in the constitution center were a huge hit with the kids.

On a more sour note...I had to spend an hour after school preparing my classroom for a visit from the Terrible Trivium. Tomorrow begins our week of state standardized testing for Reading and Math. Like in most states, I'm required to take down or cover up all of my posters, student work, etc. I think it really makes the room look awful. All the butcher paper hanging on the walls makes the room look disorganized. I have to believe it affects the moods and thinking of my students.

Either way, we'll work our way through this week's tests and then be done for the year! We're also still reading Wonder, starting a new list of Greek/Latin roots, and studying our Westward Expansion unit. The kids love all of those things, so they'll be a nice relief in between the morning and afternoon tests each day. We're getting close to the first part in Wonder where I think kids might cry. I hope I can hold it together while I read it!

In TpT news, I finally finished up a game to help review telling time and practicing elapsed time. It's another "I have, who has?" game. I like to have the kids play these in a small group during math workshop. Both games come bundled together for $3! Check it out here by clicking the cover picture:

My kids love the "steampunk" look of the victorian pocket watches.

Finally, another great piece of news is that the weather here has finally gotten reasonably Spring-like! There's nothing better than breaking out my Vespa and riding it around the countryside here in central PA on a slightly warm evening. I'm so excited to be able to start riding to work again now. You can't beat 74 mpg!

Not a whole lot of entries on my recent giveaway!  :(  Sign up, it's ending soon! 

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A visit from the Terrible Trivium

For The Phantom Tollbooth uninitiated, the Terrible Trivium is a kind of demon-dude that Milo and his buddies run into who's main purpose in life is to waste people's time with trivial and meaningless tasks.  (He's the faceless guy up there in the corner in fact!)

Well, we got to meet him again today in the form of a standardized writing assessment. And we get to spend the rest of the week with him too. Blech. 

I know this isn't a particularly fresh or unique take on testing, but man...I hate standardized tests. For one thing, my kids dread them and get nervous about them. I downplay testing in my classroom and refuse to even acknowledge that it has importance in our lives. 

I've taught my kids good pre-writing strategies that I expect them to use. I've taught them how to spice up their writing with strong adjectives and varying sentence length. We've learned about the differences in the various modes of writing. We've discussed phrasing and prosody. We've beat punctuation and capitalization into the ground...but not so they could pass a test, so they can be successful writers in real life situations. 

I tell my kiddos that they should always put their best effort into anything they do, of course. But I never act stressed about it, or emphasize its importance. Despite this attitude I could tell that many of my kids were nerve-wracked this morning when they came in and saw the blue paper I'd hung all over the walls to cover our anchor charts and student work, their desks spread out, a new #2 sitting in their pencil wells and the fact that all of my students with special needs were being ushered out of the room to test in another place. They didn't like any of that. And neither did I. 

But of course it's our job as teachers to grin and bear it! Give up 3 days of real school to the Terrible Trivium each year with a smile on our faces. He'll be back in April for 3 more days of tedium and trivial tasks when it's time to inadequately assess whether the kids can do math and read well.

Aargh! Okay, vent over! On to better things! I have much more positive posts planned for the future!

If you haven't signed up for my "Brand New to Blogging" math game giveaway and you're interested in one of my 5th grade (easily adaptable to 3rd and 4th in some cases) math games, then sign up below!

As an apology for sitting through my whole rant on testing, I hope you'll enjoy this font I made! I call it "Nick's Typewriter" 

http://2ttf.com/QosLTMPH