Along with the variable Georgia weather (it went from being in the 70s and sunny yesterday to the 50s and rainy today) comes Spring Fever, the immeasurable amounts of yellow pollen coating everyone’s cars, and the CRCT. This state-wide standardized test serves as a measuring tool to gauge how well the schools in Georgia (as well as individual teachers) are getting their students to meet or exceed the state-wide standards.
Between the random requests for tissue, my students have been preparing for the CRCT through a variety of centers-style and game-based activities. Here is what we have going on (pictures to follow):
- Show What You Know
- In this variation on using flashcards, the ELA/Reading terms were placed onto white index cards and their corresponding definitions were placed onto yellow index cards. Each student then received 3 to 4 index cards (depending on the number of students in the class). I would then read each term aloud and the students would work together or in groups to figure out whether or not they had the appropriate definition. The students had a lot of fun with this activity and it certainly pulled them into their highest of higher-order recall and thinking skills!
- The object of the game was to see which team could get rid of their cards first (through matching them with the terms read aloud).
- VARIATION: To help any students with vision challenges, I often opted to show the flashcards I had created for them on my projector screen from StudyBlue.com. You can access this same deck of cards here: http://s.tudy.it/twem684
- Parts of Speech Dominoes
- In a group of up to 6, the students worked to match examples of words with their part of speech. The students certainly had to apply what they knew through thinking critically.
- I mounted the dominoes I printed from Deceptively Educational to cardboard to make them sturdier.