Testing Tuesday (A Few Days Late): Goodies!

 Happy Tuesday Friday  SATURDAY!  It's been a very busy week with testing, so I'm a little behind on my posts.  I've been trying to work off stress (and make up for going out to eat too much in the last few weeks) by working out each evening, so my computer and blogging time has been a little less.

Well, reading assessments have come and gone and I have to brag on my class...  They totally rocked!  I was pretty confident that they'd all do just fine, but I was really surprised at how well they did as a whole.  They're my highest scoring class in my five years of teaching!  I hope that they're ready to do this well on math assessments next week!

Anyway, I mentioned the other day that I had a lot to prep for assessments.  I've taken over a lot of the testing coordinator responsibilities this year, so I've been in charge of getting goodies together for all of the students.  

(You might recall my post on motivating students.)  

I wanted to share some of the treats and goodies that we have for the kids during testing weeks.  

I might also add that we combine our assessment kickoff with Dr. Suess Week for the lower grades.  Pre-K through second grade has themes each day based on a Dr. Seuss book.  Ours are pretty much the same, but ours are tied with testing:

Monday - Dress for Success (Wear nice clothes.)

Tuesday - Anti-Bullying shirts (This is every Tuesday.)

Wednesday - Ready, Set, GO!  (Wear green shirts.)

Thursday - Step Up to the Test (Wear silly socks.)

Friday - Hats Off to Testing (Wear hats.)

In addition, our principal comes around to each classroom and gives a motivational speech.  He's been doing this for several years (as a teacher) and we all insisted that he continue this tradition.  He usually finds a video clip about someone who has overcome challenges and encourages the kids to overcome their fear and challenges with testing.  He then passes out a special paper with an encouraging phrase that many of the students take with them during testing.

Finally, the little kids in the lower grades write letters to the kids before testing.  My aunt is a first grade teacher in my building, so her class wrote letters to us and gave out some little treats.  My class loved getting letters from the first graders!  Many of them took those letters with them during testing too!

Does your school do anything special to get the kids pumped up for assessments?  I'd love to hear some ideas and suggestions that I could use for next year!  :)