Another Year of Testing Done!

Sorry I have been M.I.A.!  We just finished a week of testing on Friday.  And it has been really kind of boring in my classroom...review, review, review...yuck!

Testing was quite different for us this year...I teach in a suburb of Atlanta...no not in Atlanta, but outside.  And yes, teachers from Atlanta Public Schools were charged for fraud and such for cheating and changing students' bubbled answers on answer sheets on our state tests.  Because of that every single erasure on all students' answers sheets are now calculated and analyzed.  So this also means extra scrutiny on all teachers in Georgia...another yuck!

What did this mean for us at my school?  We did not give our classroom of students the test but were assigned to a different classroom of students during testing.  I know this seems totally normal for some...but this was a shock to the system for my colleagues and me.  It was different!  Another thing we had to do was document, document, document every major erasure that students made...like if students got off track in bubbling or skipped a question or were even really diligent in checking their work.  Nothing like being under the microscope!  Do any of you have to do this too?

But it is all done for this year...so my class did a little celebrating Friday afternoon after testing finished!  And my students enjoyed getting back to being 9 and 10 years old.  Students brought in snacks and board games to share.  We also completed a craft...making mini bookbags for our field trip to the Georgia Aquarium in a couple weeks.  Just look how relaxed they are...

 

I got the mini bookbags and fabric markers from Oriental Trading Company...they loved it!  And they will make carrying a snack and drink to the aquarium so much easier!

So glad that Monday will bring three weeks of stress-free teaching before the last day of school...this is what makes the rest of school year totally worth it!