The BIG Test Prep Blitz Reveal! {PART ONE}

Are you ready for some testing football?  This is what my kiddos saw when they came to school on Monday morning.  It was a big production... with music playing... and a "green carpet" a.ka. turf.  The crowd went WILD! :)  The kids are totally pumped to take the OAA!  I'll count that as a WIN!

We haven't really gotten into the pomp and circumstance yet, but the kids are really looking forward to doing our Football Frenzy centers on Thursday.  They have a full OAA Blitz Day on Friday, so I am saving some really fun activities for small group rotations that day too since I will have five teachers to work with (including myself).  I just keep building the suspense and the excitement each day leading up to it!  My students can't wait to wear their favorite team apparel for one last big hurrah!

So, you may be wondering, "If they haven't been working on the centers, what on earth have they been doing?"  Well, we have been working on our main selection of the week like always, but it's scaled way back to allow time to review other skills.  :)  For example, since all of our spelling words are homophones this week, we created a "Homophone Hall of Fame".  It's nothing super fancy, but is making a great interactive bulletin board leading up to test day when I will have to take the whole thing down! Ha!  {The following picture only shows what it looked like after ONE group.  I have two classes, so the entire right side of my classroom is covered in flap books right now!}

We've also been working on practicing skills from our "playbooks".  I decided to project some of the pages of the coaching playbook onto the SMARTboard to review with the whole group for the sake of time, and I have used the rest of them with kiddos for one-on-one practice during morning work.  I also slapped a cover onto a small main idea packet to make it seem a little more fun.

We even wrote some "plays" together to really examine how test questions are written.  Now I am confident that my students understand that there's always one right answer, there's usually one obvious wrong answer, and there's usually one head-scratcher.  It was nice to do a little reverse thinking to help drive home why we always want to "slash the trash"!

We played a game of SCOOT that I called "The Affix Hustle" while we listened to NFL Films tunes from the 1970's.  Every time I wanted the kiddos to move to the next chair, I blew my whistle like a true coach!  (I didn't get any action pictures, but this is what the cards looked like before I cut them apart and dispersed them around the room.)

We have been learning some test strategy cheers!  This has been a really big hit... even with the boys!

We have also reviewed some test prep questions through a little game called "HOT FOOTBALL." It's a fun little twist on hot potato!

I had the kiddos fill out a little formative assessment to help me address some questions and support my kiddos for this final push!

My partner and I also combined our groups one day to have them draft an "OAA Promise" in their own words.  We wanted it to be a little bit like a "Prom Promise", but for testing.  Plus, we wanted it to be in their own words.  They listed several things that they wanted to remember to do leading up to the test and during the test, then they all signed it.  I would love to share it here, but many kids wrote first and last names, so I am going to just leave well enough alone.  :)  If they signed the promise, they got a nifty  bracelet to serve as a reminder of their promise to work hard.

I hope you enjoyed looking at PART ONE of our OAA Blitz!  I also hope you will stop by on Friday for PART TWO!  Happy Almost Hump Day!