eOgLYMPICS - Standardized Test Review

Well, as many are finished, in the middle of, or starting end of year testing, North Carolina still has 3 weeks before we start testing. We'll be the ones you see testing on the 2nd to last day of school.

So, this is the time where we've started reviewing. Us lucky 5th grade teachers get to prepare our students to be tested in all four subjects (Math, Reading, Science, SS). As stressful as it seems to be for us already, I'm sure the kids freak out at the sound of "EOG" or "Testing."

We're reviewing as best we can to make it exciting. To spice it up, we've started the EOG Olympics!


Earning a Medal: Students have been completing practice EOG tests for homework and during random parts of our day. When a student earns an 80 or higher on a practice test, they receive a medal for their team. The team with the most medals at the end of our 2 weeks, receives an ice cream party. 

Splitting up teams: We knew right away that we did not want to base the teams on homerooms. So, in our homerooms one morning, we had each student draw a piece of paper from a basket. This was BEFORE we told them what it was for (though they still tried to swap colors with other people). There were five different colors evenly distributed through the four homerooms. These became their teams. 

I had placed popsicle sticks with 7 different countries into a cup. Teams had to choose one leader and they drew their country names.

Bulletin Board: 
Teams: My teammate used wordle.com to create their emblems. Surrounding the country names are the students' names. They are pasted onto medals.



Graph: This picture was taken before students had earned any medals. We used an incentive chart turned on its side. 


Olympic Rings and Torch: Olympic rings were the NO (ϴ) symbol from our die cut at school. My wonderful teammate, cut out the center and linked them together to make the rings. The torch is just a rolled piece of large construction paper with yellow and red tissue paper left over from our last bulletin board. 




Now that our graph has some data on it and it looks like there is some competition, our students are extremely excited about it. It is the first time since the beginning of the year where everyone has done their homework all week. Even the 4th graders are into it! They happened to be walking by me on Friday as I was updating our graph and they were extremely excited to see who was in the lead! 

How do you get your students ready for test prep? How do you keep them engaged? Especially these older ones?



TEST PREP LINKY PARTY

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