Upper Grade Test Prep Strategies

Hello Upper Elementary friends! It's Jennifer from Teaching to Inspire in 5th. We are knee deep in test prep over in Georgia. I wanted to write a post describing (and showing a few pictures) of my favorite test prep activities to use.



Gallery Walk:

For this activity, I post several problems on chart paper around the room. In groups, the students walk around and complete each problem. I have them complete them on a piece of paper first. Then, I choose groups to complete on the chart paper. Finally, if time allows, I have the groups rotate through one more time to compare and contrast their answers and strategies with the work on the chart.

Graffiti Test Prep:

If you have never seen this before, students respond to a text or stimulus on butcher paper at the same time. For this activity, I took three test prep questions and taped them to the middle of a piece of butcher paper. I sectioned off the butcher paper into four sections: A, B, C, D. This referred to the students and not the answer choices.
 
The students had to finish these sentences stems for each of the three questions:

• The question is asking me...
• The topic/skill of the question is....
• I already know ....
• The answer is ... because ...
• ....is wrong because... (done for all three incorrect answers)

Hands On Test Prep:

Finally, I love anything hands on that the students can manipulate. Here are two examples of hands on test prep centers I have used.

This one is a dialogue center where the students manipulate the punctuation and place it correctly.

This hands on center has the students correcting pronoun and antecedent agreement errors.

Do you use any of these strategies in your classroom? Or do you plan to try one out? I would love to know which one!


Jennifer

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Ring in the New Year with Ideas from Pinterest

Hello friends! This is Jennifer from Teaching to Inspire in 5th, and I hope all of you had a great holiday and spent some quality time with your family and friends.

Speaking of quality time, I wanted to share with you some great Pinterest boards to help you get ready for the New Year, and save some precious family time!


First up is my own personal Pinterest board for New Year's Ideas. I just started this board, so it will have tons of new freebies and ideas added over the next few days! Click here or on the image to see the board.

And here are two other great boards! Just click on the links to check them out!

New Years in the Classroom from Marcy (Simply Sprout)

Happy New Year from More than a Worksheet


I hope you find some great ideas to help you transition back to school and start the New Year off the right way!


Have a Happy New Year!

Jennifer

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Tis' the Season for Freebies!

Hello everyone! It's Jennifer from Teaching to Inspire in 5th. I am fortunate to be off this entire week for Thanksgiving..yay! Unfortunately, my boys are sick, so we are on quarantine over at my household.

I know everyone is super busy in the holiday mode...or is the trying to survive another day or two of work before the break, so I wanted to share some quick, fun freebies.

Hopefully these freebies will help get you through the rest of the holiday season!


First up, is a little Fall place value freebie (We are knee deep in Winter weather over here, but some of you might be lucky to be enjoying some Fall weather)

 
This little freebie contains 4 CCSS aligned story problems that are winter-themed and require some higher order thinking skills.

And, finally, some Christmas cheer in the form of a themed fraction sort that has the student sorting fractions based on if they are greater than, equal to, or less than 1/2.

 Happy Holidays! I hope you are able to use the freebies!


Jennifer

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Guided Reading Organization

Hi guys! It's Jennifer from Teaching to Inspire in 5th. One of my favorite parts of the year is getting my guided reading notebook organized. I change some parts of it every year and keep some the same.

Let's take a quick peek inside my guided reading binder for this year.

My main goal when I get it set up is: Keep it Simple! I try to get it to the essentials that I need to maintain my records for each group. Here is what I include:

1. My first section contains my whole group data information such as guided reading levels, spelling levels, and any other whole group data that pertains to reading.

 2. The next section has a numbered tab for each student in my class. This is where I keep my running record data. I have a spreadsheet graph that I complete each time I do a running record and then I place the running record underneath the graph.

Under each tab you will find a graph of each running record and then the actual running record forms.

3. The next tabs are were I keep my group records and information. Each group tab contains four items: the current week's lesson plans, the list of books we have read as a group, my guided reading groups note page where I keep anecdotal notes on the group's progress and needs, and the independent reading conference forms for the students in that group. (I keep the independent reading conferences in this section because I complete those conferences once a week while they are back with me in their group.)

4. And finally I have a section in the back for blank forms.

And that is it! I keep it simple but organized.

What are some must haves that you include in your Guided Reading notebook or binder?

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"When are we EVER going to use THIS?!"

"When are we EVER going to use THIS?!"  This statement... this one little statement has caused fear and panic to run through MANY a math teacher's veins!  It's not like you won't use math in the real world... but sometimes as soon as that question is uttered we have a mind-melting-moment and cannot come up with just the right words to say.

So to help give you some real world, possibly out of the box thinking type ideas, my Book Blogging Buddies and I have come up with an idea that we think will be
 A-MAY-ZING!!

Presenting..... math IS real life!  A monthly REAL WORLD math blog link-up hosted by 4mulaFun, Fourth Grade Studio, Teaching to Inspire in 5th, AND MissMathDork,

So here is how this will work.... on the FIRST Wednesday of every month (starting next Wednesday, August 7th!) all four of us will create a blog post about how we have RECENTLY used math in our real life - not just counting or time.... but topics that your kiddos will be able to relate to at various level of upper elementary and middle school.  Then at the bottom of all four of our blogs we will have a link-up that will sync between all four blogs.  This means you link up to one of us and it will be visible on all 4 blogs!  

So... what are you waiting for?!  You have 6 days to decide what math topic has happened recently in your life and to create a blog post about it!  If you have a product you want to link that APPLIES to the post, go for it, but freebies are more than appreciated too!

We are so very excited to see what everyone comes up with!!
 Let the MATH NERD-INESS BEGIN!!!

 

Want to stay in contact with me?  Here are some awesome options:

MMD on Facebook

TPT Store

TN Store

Blog

Pinterest

MMD requests

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Organization: Task Cards and Other Game Pieces

Happy Friday! Is anyone else nearing the end of their school year? We only have 1 week left!

Today, I wanted to share with you a couple of organizational supplies that I tried out this year and am loving!

First up, I use task cards a lot...I mean all the time! In fact, I printed out a ton of task cards for test prep this year. And as luck would have it, the laminator decided this was a good time to take a vacation. So here I sat with a stack of task cards printed on card stock with no place to go. I remembered seeing a pin from Minds in Bloom about using photo albums to store cards. On a mission to find the cheapest photo albums, I found myself at a local dollar store. I picked up all the clear plastic photo albums they had. They were only $1! I took out the front cover and then loaded them with task cards. Perfect solution for my lamination dilemna!

I had the kids working in pairs so they shared a photo album with one another. It worked perfectly. No more missing task cards, no more crumpled or bent task cards! And the kids thought it was fun! Go figure!

Task cards shown are from Teaching with a Mountain View and Rachel Lynette.


On a trip to Office Depot that same weekend I came across these plastic envelopes (again just $1!). I immediately grabbed them and knew they were perfect for my Spoons games. These are also perfect for any game or center activity that requires small pieces. No more plastic bags for me!

I would love to hear how you organize task cards or other pesky game pieces.


Jennifer

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Showing the LOVE in Math

Have you ever noticed that some students that excel on multiple choice math tests struggle with constructed response assessments that require them to show all of their thinking? This is our first year taking constructed response assessments and I have learned that I have a lot of kids just like this in my classroom. (And even more that didn’t excel at either at the beginning of the year!) Early on, I knew I needed to come up with something to help them remember to show all of their thinking (and then some) on constructed response/word problems. With that, the acronym LOVE was born. You can read more about it here.

L: Label everything! Your visuals, your equation, anything you can put a label on!

O: Our Thinking. For this the students turn the question into a sentence with a blank for the answer. This is huge for them! They know they have to do this first. If they can’t do it, they have to re-read that problem and break it down until they know exactly what is being asked. This part really helps them make sense of the problem and check their answer for reasonableness. Also, it makes sure they actually answer the question! Our current rubric takes off a point for precision if they don’t actually state the answer in words, pulling it back to the problem.

V: Visuals. Our constructed response assessments are on the Fraction domains of common core so visuals are so important.

E: Equations. They must show an equation to represent their visual or to show how they got their answer.

This acronym has worked wonders with my students this year. They know to show the LOVE on any word problem I give them, even morning work. As evidence, we just finished our 2^nd constructed response assessment for the year and over half of my kids more than tripled their previous scores. We are talking going from a score of 1 out of 20 to a 14 out of 20. That is HUGE!

As I mentioned above, they show the LOVE on all of their assignments in math. Here are some images from their morning work. Check out all of that writing, drawing, labeling….I LOVE IT!

 How do you prepare your students for constructed response math assessments?

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Teaching Students to Justify in Math

Hello friends! The weekend is almost upon us!

Today, I wanted to share with you an answer chart that I saw in a middle school classroom that I was in a few weeks ago for professional development. This chart was fantastic for scaffolding the students through justifying their work in math. Take a look!

I loved this chart because it broke down justification into looks like/sounds like. This shows the students in an explicit manner how justification should look on their paper and should sound when they discuss it with a partner or whole group. Students have to be explicitly taught how to justify their work in any subject. I found this to be an excellent approach to teaching them how to justify that will carry over into any subject. It includes social norms, a little procedural norms, and some excellent scaffolds for making sense of their work...all three things that all students need!

How do you teach your students how to justify their work?


Have a great weekend!
Jennifer

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Teaching Point of View Through Writing

Happy Wednesday! We have reached the midpoint of the week. :D

Today, I wanted to share a writing project that my students worked on a few weeks ago. I teach in Tennessee and they recently changed the writing exam. The students have to read a text and respond by writing a narrative story. So I decided to tackle this and our point of view standards at the same time...and why not throw in some Social Studies! Gotta love integrating skills into one assignment.

We started this lesson by reading a Rosa Parks biography. You can read any picture book or passage for this lesson. As we read, we took specific notes about her experience on the bus. Then, we discussed point of view. We made a list of different people who would have enough knowledge to retell the events from their point of view. Here is what we came up with: the bus driver, another passenger, Rosa Parks heself, the police officer, and even Martin Luther King, Jr, who one student said would need to know this event to better his purpose.

After that, we discussed how each person would have a distinct point of view and would describe the events according to that point of view. We brainstormed feelings and internal dialogue for each person. Then, the students chose which person whose point of view they wanted to use to retell the events. We wrote rough drafts, edited and revised and then published! I was so excited to publish because we rarely have time for formal publishing.

I made this fun printable to help them publish. Click on the picture to get a copy today! The awesome graphics are from Teacher's Clipart!

Then we combined the printable and the story for a cute published piece for a bulletin board! Check them out!

I had to share this one because of the image! I thought they would draw the person in the circle, but some of them made the circle the face! :D

From the point of view of Rosa herself:

You may not be able to see the title, but it says "I'm Still Standing." I just love these kids!

I would love to hear how you guys tackle the skill of point of view.

Jennifer

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Upper Elementary Teachers Need Love , Too!

This blog was just an idea a few days ago and now look at it! I really wanted to start this blog because I really felt like the blogging world was missing some awesome collaboration from upper grade teachers. So, with that in mind, I enlisted the help of some great blogger/teacher friends to get the ball running. We have real experts in their fields and I know this blog will be a great tool for any upper grade teacher.

Now a little about me….

My name is Jennifer Findley and I have two adorable sons. Blake is 7 and very smart and spunky. Brody is 9 and autistic. He is also nonverbal and like a toddler trapped in a big boy's body. Needless to say, everyday is a trip with him! We never know what he will get into next. Currently, I am working on my 4^th year as an inner city teacher in Chattanooga, TN. I taught 3^rd my first year (which I LOVED) and then 5^th grade for the past three years. I just can’t seem to find my way out of 5^th grade! 5^th  is such a great grade to teach if you can look past the drama that comes with teaching 10-11 year olds. I love their independence and ability to really think creatively. I teach in a very rigorous, yet engaging manner. My favorite items to create are games and centers that are fun, visually appealing but also directly aligned to those pesky standards.

Now for the FREEBIE! I absolutely love creating holiday inspired centers and games. I have been working on some super cute language centers with a fun Valentine theme. This one covers prepositions and it is free for all of you blogger friends! Just click on the image below to download your copy today.

In addition to this freebie, I am going to put my 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^thGrade Essential Question packs for all the Literacy Common Core standards on sale 20% this weekend only. These awesome resources contain essential questions and teaching prompts for every Literacy standard. In fact, each standard has its very own page with anywhere from 4 to 8 questions! These are a must have when planning lessons for the common core, especially if you use backward design or are required to teach with essential questions.

You can find the 3rd grade version here, 4th grade version here, and 5th grade version here!

Well, enough about me. I can’t wait for you to meet all of the contributors! Remember to check back every day to meet a new teacher and check out their awesome freebie!

What do you most want to see shared on this blog?

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