Adventures of Ms. Smith: Testing Craziness!

State testing starts TOMORROW.

Ohhh, my gosh.

This moment has been much anticipated and is finally here.

My kiddos are ready. I just hope they realize they are ready.

I've been pumping positive thoughts

and saying phrases like
"Wow! That open ended question is AMAZING!"...

for like a month straight.

Our work is DONE. DONE. DONE.

Now its time for us to show what we know... and we definitely know it.

Today we spent the whole day reviewing in centers. I created/purchased 5 different ELA sports related centers for us to use today with a sports theme. I have a bunch of boys, and most of my girls play softball, so I decided this was the theme to use.

The first center I created was Synonym Sort
(basketball addition).

I created two centers, but ended up only using one.

Center #1 – Synonym Match Up
This center contains thirty different word cards. Your students will match each word card with its appropriate match. These cards can be left face up or they can be placed face down to make matching the cards more difficult. Once each pair of cards has been matched, students will record their answers on their answer sheet. Early Finishers can brainstorm an antonym for each pair of synonyms. This can also be recorded on their answer sheets.

Center #2 – Synonym/Antonym Sort
In this center, students will read two different words and determine whether they are synonyms and antonyms. Once they have determined if the card contains synonyms or antonyms, they will place it under the appropriate header. After students have sorted all 30 cards, they will pick 5 different cards to practice writing synonyms and antonyms. Because there are two words on each card, students will end

up with 10 different sentences.

The second center I created was Syllable Baseball.

Sorry, no catchy name, but boy was it a hit!

In this activity students will pair up with a partner. Each student will have 4 bases (each base representing a syllable). Students will take turns drawing a word card and sorting it according to the appropriate syllable. After all cards have been sorted, each student will add up their points (each base is worth a different number of points). The student with the highest number of points wins the game. Students will also complete a syllable sort handout while they sort and play this game.

Here is the "Syllable Baseball" in action!