Three Things Thursday

ONE

So I made a huge discovery last night--I have been making smoothies wrong my WHOLE LIFE.  Seriously folks, gather round.  This is huge.  So every time I make a smoothie, it always drives me crazy that I have to stop the blender several times and stir the ingredients up.  But then this week, I read somewhere (and I literally have no clue where) that you should put your liquid in the bottom of the blender, then your greens, and finally chunks of fruit and ice on top.  I have always done exactly the opposite--layer the fruit and greens, then pour almond milk over it all.  I tried the liquid first method and oh em gee, it was perfect!  

 So tell me--am I the only one who didn't know that this was the correct way to make smoothies?  Am I smoothie-inept?  Is this common sense to anyone else?  It honestly never occured to me--I've been blaming my blender for years!

TWO

Today was our LAST DAY of ISAT testing!!  Woohoo!!  More than anything, I am relieved to be back to our normal schedule--for everyone's sake!!!  My pre-testing "pep talks" have gotten shorter every day, and yesterday morning I had to swap my heels for a pair of crocs midway through our test.  I am so over testing!!

THREE

My grade level team has been saying this year that we needed a "team building" activity to socialize together outside of school.  Back in December, we bought Groupons for one of those step-by-step painting classes.  None of us are artists, but there was the promise of conversation and wine.  We ended up having a great time!

(That wine has been refilled by this point...)

The finished product!  I'm not going to be changing careers anytime soon, let's just say!

Tell me about your week!

Pumping Kids Up for THE TEST!

We are knee deep in state testing here in Illinois!  4 tests down, 4 to go.  (We only give one test a day so the kids don't get overwhelmed and exhausted, but it makes for a looong two weeks of testing...)  I wanted to dedicate a post to sharing some of the ways I pump my kiddos up for testing--both state testing and every test we take.  I try to keep testing really light and positive.  All year long I talk about tests as a "big game" or "championship"--the result of all of our practice, hard work, and "training."  When I introduce a test on a regular day, I usually do it something like this.  "You guys, we have something exciting happening this week!  We get to show our learning on a test!"  Then I have the kids cheer. :)  I know, it sounds silly, but after making tests a positive thing all year, the kids actually buy into it and cheer all by themselves. ;)  

Shared these testing treats last year, inspired by this pin

Next, when I pass out tests, I have the kids write "Bring it On!" on the top.  I use this ALLLL the time--any time we are about to do something tough, I say, "This is challenging!  What do we say to a challenge??" and the kids shout, "Bring it on!"

I've shared my affirmation wall before, and while I refer to it every day, I make sure to refer to it a little extra during testing time.  

I truly believe that these affirmations--both posting them on my walls and weaving them into the culture of my classroom--make a difference in my students' attitudes.  I hope that if there is one gift I can give them, it's that they carry these affirmations with them after they leave my classroom.  I cover the kiddos' name tags before testing because we aren't allowed to have any tools (multiplication charts, etc.) on their desks, and I let the kids doodle on them.  I also encourage them to write some positive "words of encouragement" to remember during testing.  Love this girl's:

I talk to the kids all the the time about my running, training, and racing.  Why?  Because I like them to say, "WOW, you ran that far?" and ask, "Did you WIN your half marathon??"?  Haha not exactly.  I like them to see me set big goals, work hard to train for them, and risk it all on race days.  I talk to them about how nervous I get before a race and how I have to tell myself to trust my training, tell myself, 'You can do it!', and visualize myself succeeding.  They love hearing about it, and I feel like it sets a good example for them of how hard work pays off.  I call our test prep "training" for our big event--THE TEST. :)  I like to have them visualize opening their test booklets, visualize knowing EVERY ANSWER, and visualize succeeding and proud after finishing.

My absolute favorite test motivation strategy came to me randomly my first year teaching when I had 5 extra minutes the week before testing.  I had the kids write a letter to the class, wishing them good luck and offering "words of encouragement" to make their classmates feel confident before testing.  What started as a "filler" became a yearly tradition.  I LOVE it.  The kids write the sweetest, most thoughtful notes to the class. I read a few before testing every day, and the kids love them.  Some of this year's favorites:

Please ignore the atrocious spelling...we're working on it...

How do you keep spirits high during test time?

Shaking Up Test Review

Hi friends--it's been awhile!  I've been trying to let go of technology and unchain myself from my computer a little bit more these days, spending more time with books instead...that, and things have been crazy busy.  But what else is new!  I took a break from blogging for awhile because I just didn't have many ideas for posts, and I feel like no one cares to read my mindless ramblings when I have nothing to say!  But in the past few weeks I've finally had some ideas for a few posts, mostly classroom related things.  Today's is just a quick one!

I don't know about you, but I struggle with how to make review for math tests effective and meaningful for the majority of my class.  It feels like for most tests there are a handful of students who would benefit from some serious review and reteaching, and the rest of the class just needs a bit of practice.  In the past, I'd spend a full class period reviewing a ton of concepts, but we all know that's not exactly best practice.  One of my favorite strategies is to do a guided math format (I run guided math most days) and have the kids not working in my group complete a Math Scavenger Hunt.  Sound complicated?  It's actually the opposite.

I write up between 8 and 10 math problems like the kind that will be on our test on individual index cards and tape them up in "hiding places" around the room--on cabinets, bookshelves, the sides of desks, etc.  Then, I have my students travel the room with their math notebooks and their "Brain Buddy" (aka math partner), find all of the review problems, and answer them in their notebook.

In the mean time, I pull groups of students for guided group review.  I start with the neediest kiddos, then at the end pull bigger groups of kids who have finished the review to correct their answers and reteach as necessary.  My kids are well-trained in how to work quietly and efficiently with their partners, and of course I clearly set my expectations before we start.  The best parts of the scavenger hunt are that not only are the kids completing test practice problems, but they are actively moving around, engaged, and it takes next to no prep on my part--no copies, just writing up some problems and taping them around the room.  AND I am able to work really closely with the kids who NEED me!  So much better than a worksheet.

In other news, I'm heading off to Florida on Friday morning to run the Disney Princess Half Marathon with my sister in law and a dew of her friends.  This will be her FIRST half, and I couldn't be more excited for her!  Disney Princess was my first half a few years ago, and in spite of some injuries, it truly was magical. :)  I can't wait!

How do you make test review fun?

What have you been up to lately???  I've missed you guys since I dropped off the blogosphere planet...hopefully someone still reads this!! :)

More than a Test Score?

 After taking our district's winter standardized tests last week, I had been working on a post about how I get my students all pumped up for our trimester-ly testing in math and reading--you know, the chants, the goal setting, etc.  But today I am in a bit of a funk and testing is the reason why, so that post is on hold for now as I'm experiencing a bit of a teacher-wallow tonight.  Let me back up--we take MAP tests (Measure of Academic Progress--or is it proficiency? who can keep the acronyms straight!) three times a year in math and reading.  The tests are taken on the computer and generate a score, a percentile, and growth targets for winter and spring testing for each student in each subject area.

Our elaborate goal-setting sheets

My district is crazy data-driven, as I know they are all coming to be, and place a lot of weight (read: pressure) on these tests...I'm talking tons of goal setting time, reflecting on the goals, poring over data in fancy schmancy data analysis programs, etc.   We talk about our grade level and classroom's scores at our evaluations (although they are not TECHNICALLY part of them...yet...) and reflect on the students  progress like crazy.  This all means, you guessed it, that the pressure is on like whoa.  When I proctor MAP, I walk around the room sneaking peeks at the kids' questions and responses on their computers, growing more and more nauseous every time I see a kid answer a question wrong.  When they raise their hand to let me know they have finished and that their score is displayed on their computer screen, as I'm walking over to check their score, I am pretty much 100% of the time terrified that they didn't make their growth target or worse--went down a few points.  The kids feel the pressure for sure, but I'm positive that I feel it more.  

We took our Math and Reading MAP tests last week.  My kids did great overall, especially in reading.  We celebrated our growth, recognized our hard work, and were feeling pretty great.  Then today I looked more closely at the data from my math class.  We use a guided math structure in our building and are lucky enough to have a support teacher help out with guided groups a few days a week.  I have 4 groups--an approaching group, a bubble group, and two on/on+ groups.  After trying to cram an entire 90min Everyday Math lesson into 30 minutes, I typically meet with my approaching group every day, then check in with my on groups to answer questions, check work on their independent tasks, etc.  My support teacher meets with my bubble group MWF for a full 25 minutes, then that group is on their own Tuesdays and Thursdays when I don't have the support.  

Goal Setting, Goal Setting, Goal Setting!

I thought this structure was working well for the most part--the kids are doing great on classroom assessments, the high kids who see me very little did AWESOME on MAP and are clearly making growth with the support they are getting, and my approaching group showed some big gains.  However, when I looked closely at specific scores, kids, and growth targets this afternoon, I realized that 6/7 kids in that bubble group made very little growth on their MAP tests.  Crap.

The more closely I looked at the numbers and the more I thought about these kids this afternoon, the more my heart sank.  While my support teacher is great and is a certified teacher, the fact is that she isn't there everyday to work with that group and isn't in the room when I teach the shared lesson for Math so that she can reinforce it verbatim in guided groups.  It's not her fault these kids didn't make growth.  But for me right now I can't escape this awful feeling:

It's all my fault.

Anyone else feel like that?  I sure do.  It's my fault that these kids didn't make more growth--I didn't check in on them enough, I didn't make enough time for them...I just feel rotten tonight.  Last year at my old school, I remember telling friends that I truly felt my administrators believed that if my kids didn't make growth that it would be 100% my fault.  It was awful.  I just want to be clear that I am not getting that message AT ALL this year from my administrators and teammates.  But how can I not feel like that when the data is there in black and white??  

After feeling like an awful teacher and bad person this afternoon--I know, I know, I'm not!--I am thinking about testing.  When did testing become this crazy powerful force?  It's hard to escape the feeling that my worth as a teacher is nothing more than a test score--even though I KNOW my principal doesn't believe that.  Don't get me wrong--testing and accountability and progress monitoring are SO IMPORTANT.  Our testing gives us such valuable data about our kids.  And this particular situation with my kiddos opened my eyes to an issue in my math structure that I can and will correct now, halfway through the year, which is awesome.  It's just so defeating sometimes to think, "Man, I was working SO HARD to make kids A, B, C, and D make growth...how did I miss these kids..."

source

There are just times I look at situations like this or think about how I'm feeling about testing--how much I worry and how many times I go over their scores and growth--and I have to wonder if there's a better way.  My college ed professor had a bumper sticker on her car that said "My Child is More than a Test Score."  I KNOW my kids are more than data points.  They are children.  This test does not measure the joy they experienced as they solved that super tricky math problem or the way they shot up their hand to share a deep thought during our class read aloud.  My kids are more than test scores.  But am I?  Are we as teachers nothing more than our test scores? 

Anyways...I am trying to come up with a coherent closing thought, but needless to say it's been a long day...

Would love to hear your thoughts about testing in general...

Do you get as wrapped up in test scores as me?  

NOTE:  I am 100% NOT writing this post to get affirmations of "You are a good teacher!"  or "Testing sucks!"  Just getting out my thoughts and feelings and looking to hear some of your thoughts too.

Wordless Wednesday: ISAT Edition

Buckle your seat belts, folks...we are knee deep in test booklets and #2 pencils here in Illinois!

My inspiration

Favorite Read Alouds for the week of THE TEST

3 tests down, 3 to go...God help us all...