End of the Year ABC book for Science and Social Studies Review

Hey there!!

We are nearing the end of our school year (only 13 days) and with the end of the year comes more assessments.  Ugh.  We just finished our state tests a week ago and then last week my students had to take county tests.  Testing, testing, testing.

I feel really bad that my students are being tested so much right here at the end of school.  They had to take a 2 hour writing "test" Friday for some grant that we got.  Plus, now they have to do another writing prompt for gifted "testing" and a different writing prompt for the end of the year for 4th to show growth.  And, they have to do problem solving for gifted testing, and a different exemplar for end of 4th grade.  Not to mention all of the running records I have to get done.  

Sounds fun, right??  Nope.

So, the big thing for me was to try to find something they could do that was fun, but quiet, while I'm doing running records for the next two weeks.  Did I mention they have that "school's out" attitude already?  So keeping them quiet has been a little more challenging lately.

I didn't really want to just give them busy work, and let's get real, do I really want to have to grade all of those papers?  No, thank you.

So, Stacia and I put our heads together and brainstormed science and social studies terms from the year.  Then, we made it into an ABC book for them. Several teachers in our school have done something similar, but they let the students pick a word for each letter.  For me, that left too many options open and I wasn't sure what we'd get.  So, we gave them the words and let them go from there. (Yes, I am a control freak.)

Unfortunately, I typed the book at school and I don't have it here, but I will add the table of contents on Monday when I get it from school.

But, here are some pictures of what we've done so far:

I know it's simple.  But, my hope is that it motivates them to think, have fun drawing, and to stay engaged while I am doing running records.  So far, I think they have done really well! (Although, I'm not really sure what  the gold rush has to do with a coal mine, but...I'll straighten that out with her on Monday.  I didn't catch it until just now.  Gotta love kids!)  :O)

So, since my sweet friend Joanne is so flexible, I am linking this up with her

Hopefully this will motivate the students to stay engaged, I'll get my running records done super fast (ummmm, fingers crossed) and then we can do something FUN.  F-U-N!!!  FUN!!  Because, I'm just not having them leave my class with testing as their last memory.  I'm just not.

Go check out the other great motivators at Joanne's blog by clicking the button above!

How do you motivate students when you are trying to get running records done?

Amanda