Preparing for State Testing

We just finished our state testing on Friday of last week.  What do you do to prepare for state testing?  I use the typical Jeopardy and Are you Smarter than a fifth graders, but here are some other items that I've created, bought, and thought of over the years...

I made my own Government BINGO cards.  Each card is completely different and the students are mainly reviewing important documents we discussed, amendments, and the amendment process.

On the other side of the same card is an overview of SS for the ENTIRE year!  This is always fun to see kids trying to recall these important events that we've not talked about since the beginning of the school year.

I downloaded these Where Am I Cards and students had fun trying to guess where I was.  Next time, I think I will ask them to point it out on the MAP!!  Here is the link to get these for FREE!!

I started doing these when I taught third grade and I love them, plus the students do too!  Basically, you fold the paper at the bottom up about 2 inches.  You then write three clues about a person and have students guess the Who Am I?  I actually let my students draw names out of bag to get their assigned person.  They then read them to the class and have their classmates guess!  You could do this with Where am I? or even What am I? and do vocabulary words!

Here is the answer, which is written under the 2 inch flap.

In Science, I had created games already for each unit, so we pulled those games out and revisited them.  So what about you, what do you do to make reviewing fun and meaningful?

Four Corners

Happy Saturday, y'all!

My goal today is to get this house nice and clean, but I'm here bloggin' instead! Please don't tell my hubby! ;)

I wanted to share with you all today a FUN game that my students enjoyed playing this year!  It is based on the rainy day recess game, "4 Corners."  One day during a regular play of this game, I thought- DUH!!!  **And that is how this game was created!

What you do is label each corner, A, B, C, and D.

You ask the students a question and then they move to the corner that they believe is the right answer.  The easiest way to do this, so you don't have to repeat yourself 100 times, is to create a slide show and project it on your Promethean Board (or whatever "smart" board you have), so that students can read them, too.

After a few minutes you make sure that ALL the students are in a corner and then you can use this time to discuss the incorrect answers.  Students that are in those corners will have a seat.  The students that were in the correct corner get to answer another question!!

Rules:
No running
No pushing
No moving to a different corner once I call "time."

Pros:
Interactive review game!!!
Use your state standardized testing questions (GA takes the CRCT, so I would create questions that are similar to those that could be found on a test, or used old ones found from the web)
Students have fun!  On rainy days my students ALWAYS wanted to play this 4 corners instead of the regular way.

Cons:
In each class the students have decided that one kid is "the smart kid" and they started following them around!  To stop this, I threw in trick questions.  I also would say, "Are y'all sure about that" and create the look of confusion on their faces!

Adaptations:
I changed up our 4 corners game in several different ways this year...
When we were studying the classification system (kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species) I found two other open spots to create "6" corners.
When we were studying different historical figures, I would label each "4" corner with a name of a person we were learning about.  I would read different facts about a person and they would have to find the correct person!
Our all time favorite was for CRCT studying and I posted four different wars that we discussed in Social Studies.  I would read facts about the weapons, the reasons for the war, the places it was fought, etc.

How do you think you could use this game in your classroom?
*Can't wait to see those answers in the comments below!!

CRCT Rewards

This weekend I spent my time thinking about what I can could that would be special for the kids that passed the CRCT. Other teachers are giving a monetary prize, but I cannot afford that.

So I went and bought bubbles at Walmart. The packs of 8 are on sale for $3. I created a bubble label that reads, "You BLEW me away on the Science CRCT! Congrats! Love, Mrs. Lazenby" I tied these bubbles to each container and I cannot wait to give it to the kids tomorrow!



For those that did not pass I am giving them a small piece of candy. For those that exceeded the CRCT I have a certificate for them, too.

End of the Year!

I cannot believe that this is the LAST week of my FIRST year of teaching! It has been an experience, that is for sure! However, with the bad came the good! I cannot imagine things being any different. Next year I will know what to expect! This summer I will plan, plan, and plan!!!

Besides I am WAY PROUD OF MY LITTLE BOOGERS!!! On Friday we got the results back from our CRCT. My Scientist did AWESOME! 75% of them PASSED!! The 25% was made up of 17 students, 3 of them are SPED and 3 of them missed a passing grade by ONE QUESTION!!!

It didn't hit me until we went into a meeting on Friday afternoon and was given this graph. I cried!

(First column all students, second is third grade, third is fourth grade, and last is 5th grade.)

My students did NOT get to have a science review because I was helping the reading teacher for three weeks. And we only spent ONE day talking about Light and Sound! However, we were still able to accomplish this!

Another proud moment was when I found out one my kids only missed ONE question on the entire science section of the CRCT. I am making a special reward for him now. However, I was wondering what others do for students that passed state testing?

Our honor's day is on Wednesday and I have lots of goodies for the students. One is a class picture for each student, our school does not take them. I did this for EACH fourth grade class. I also got these AWESOME candy bar wrappers made!


My friend Mandy makes these and are very reasonably priced! If you are interested just leave me a message and I can send you her information! She is currently making them to raise money for a mission trip she is going on in June. I was happy to help her, and LOVED what I received in return! ;)

(I just wrapped all 70 of these tonight and this is the outcome!)

As a class we also voted on classroom awards for each student, which I printed and laminated those certificates. Students will be receiving them after the school honor's day. I sent this invitation home to parents, I HOPE THAT SOME COME!!!


What are some things that teachers do for OLDER students at the end of the year?

I'm a Winner

Sorry for the delay in posting, I have been super busy with things. However, I have some great things to share with you this weekend and will get to that tonight, or tomorrow. Right now I want to share with you some exciting news, which is I WON SOMETHING!! :)

Queen of the First Grade Jungle had a giveaway for a super cool book that I have never read before and also an exciting lesson from Sarah Cooley! I cannot wait to get both prizes because they look/sound exciting. It will be a great year end review from our Solar System Unit we did a few weeks ago.

I guess the other exciting news to share with you, is that two days are complete with our CRCT (state testing) and we have three more to do. Most of my students are rushing and not checking their answers. Are there any tips, other than telling them?

I'll be back later for more updates and some pictures of how things are done in my classroom.

Here is a picture of my beautiful newspaper covered walls. ;)