Sunday, April 15, 2012

What We Have Been Up To...

If any one is a 3rd-5th teacher this past month and a half (depending on where you live/work) you have been doing what most of us....test prep! Yes, we are t-minus 1 week. My lesson plans pretty much look like...Review, Review, Review, Test Prep Tubs, Test Prep Tubs, and so on.

I try to make it as fun and interesting as possible. We have been doing some major reading and grammar review. This year my class is a pretty strong math class. They really enjoy it, love doing guided math, and are great mathematical thinkers. This is not a problem at all...but third graders have to pass the reading portion of the test to move to fourth grade.

Well for grammar we have been spending a day or two on each skill. We started with reviewing everything we knew about sentences. So we made an organizer. This one was pretty basic and very wordy...well we are reviewing sentences. But the kids were great and kept up...it did take two days to complete.




Can anyone tell me why blogger turns my pictures some times...Well my example is on the top and I also added a student example. There are eight boxes: 1. Title box  2. What is a sentence? 3. Types of Sentences  4. Examples of types of sentences (the students wrote their own)  5. Subjects in a sentence  6. Predicates in a sentences (both included compound subjects and predicates) 7. Combining Sentences  8. Examples of good sentences (we used magazines to find examples of good sentences in text, cut them out and glued them on).

Next we moved on to nouns. Here is a window organizer with four tabs on each side. We cut the top left one off to make it a title box.


(of course the table was wet right where I laid it!!!) Outside tabs: what is a noun, singular nouns, plural nouns, common nouns, proper nouns, singular possessive nouns, plural possessive nouns. Then we tackled the inside.




We wrote the definitions of each and then found two pictures in magazines for each type of noun. I like doing these because it not only helps refresh the minds but they also have something to take home and look over (hopefully).

I also really like using this test prep book (I'm not sure about if there are ones for other states, probably though). I usually copy the page out of it for the skill I am reviewing. After our activity the students will complete it, show it to me to be checked....I use Skittles for motivation...if they do well they get a few Skittles (you wouldn't believe how much harder they try if you are giving Skittles)...if they aren't doing so well I may meet small group, one on one...what ever time allows.

 

The other thing I have been busting my bottom to get done is our SS curriculum! We still have one more person to study and just finally finished Economics. Instead of using interactive notes, we sort of made an interactive booklet. Same concept as the notes, but in a little book.

My cover isn't decorated, but the kids did theirs:






I used my document camera and made one along with them.

So I guess to some of my GA friends...may your last week of review be fun, interesting, exciting, and hopefully FAST! 

Jessica