Test Prep - NO WORKSHEET WEDNESDAY Edition!

Today was my third day back from school since spring break.  I didn't even realize how  much I missed my sweet kiddos until I saw them on Monday morning.  I have some great kids this year.  I came to school SO excited about No Worksheets Wednesday and it did not disappoint!


We are getting ready for our standardized tests.  BORING!  I absolutely hate test prep!  That is why I made a MOVE IT especially for test prep.  This PowerPoint shows questions similar to those that the kids will see on the big test.  My kiddos use dry erase boards to show me their answers.  I love this because I can do an immediate assessment and give feedback.  After we do a few questions, we get out of our seats and MOVE IT!  The theme of this MOVE IT is "Test Prep is Awesome".  Guess what?  It really is!  Brain breaks have animated timers and music.  We walk around and high five our awesome classmates and tell them "You are awesome!"  We also do lazy 8s and an elbow-knee cross crawl inspired by brain gym.  Pretty awesome, right?

This is SO-O-O-O much more fun than the boring test prep we used to do!  It took a ton of copies to prep sheets out of my old resource book.  Now, our test prep takes NO materials.  Click here to see 1st grade ELA MOVE IT and click here to see 1st grade Math MOVE IT.

In math we are reviewing geometry and are working on slides, turns, and flips.  We tossed our workbook page for a fun hands-on project.  OH YA!!!  That's what I'm talking about!   

 I gave my kiddos a bunch of pattern blocks and three sheets of white paper.  They wrote "slide", "flip", and "turn" on the pages.  Next, they traced the pattern blocks to create their own slides, flips, and turns.

I stapled the three finished pages together to form a triangle and hung them from the ceiling.  (Wall space is minimal in room 203, so we do lots of hanging art!)  I love making these triangular mobiles because they are SO easy.  As an added bonus, when the AC kicks on, they start spinning!  My firsties had WAY more fun with this project than they would have with the workbook page and got a lot more practice than they would have with the pencil and paper.

Today was a great day in my room and I am so grateful to be able to share it with you.  Thanks for reading.

Until next time,