It's easy for YOU!

As my students prepare for ISTEP (Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress), we have been working on skills to help them on the testing. Last week and this week we have been reviewing what it means to draw inferences (specifically from a text, as they will see on the tests). Today we played a game that solicited some great responses from the kids. I had a stack of index cards with emotions on them (i.e. worried, afraid, excited, guilty) and one student would come to the front and sit in a chair. Another student would hold the card above the first student's head and the classmates would call out things to help the student guess what the word was. For instance, guilty: "I feel so bad about what I did." "The judge might say this to you in court." You get the point.

So one student has the word joyful above his head. I admit, this is a tough one, but they asked for a hard one. We gave him hints such as "synonyms for this word include: cheerful, happy, excited." He was struggling so I started to hum "Joy to the World" and several students joined me. He was still clueless. Finally one of the students said, "It's so easy. She sang the song to you!" He replied, "Sure, it's easy for you. You're LOOKING at the word!"

I probably got the best participation I've ever had from my class playing this game. And they had me laughing pretty hard at times.

Studying the solar system

Identify the following planets [pictures of planets] and how you are able to identify them:
"Sun - only planet on fire"
"Sun - it is the first hottest place"
"Earth - I live on it"


Describe the features of a comet:
"Here's a description of a comet: there's to tails and kinda in the middle theres a sun type thing."


Draw a picture of an object that might impact a planet. Label and describe the object.
"The sun would destroy the moon because of the hotness."
"The asteroid would hit a planet or moon because it does not know where its going."
"This is a piece of space junk. It could hit a planet or moon if it was in front of it or behind it."
And this one gets my vote:
"A shoe could impact a planet because the wood, metal or plastic that's on the bottom could indent it. There's proof because a shoemaker did this once."


So astronomy might not be their strongest subject [grammar might not be for that matter] but they're persevering through this unit.

Grade these essays with a straight face

Here's what my 5th graders have to say about a good teacher and a good student:

A Good Teacher...

• should assign no homework (who saw that coming?)
• maybe sometimes they will play a game if students are good
  
• helps you when you are confused
• most of all should be educational
• it would be nice to not be mean to the students
• should not be a grumpy bear
• always respects her students' wishes (Is that a wish?)
• makes us smart
• gives her students an A+ every time on their report cards

A Good Student...

• friendly to their pears (that's a direct quote from a journal entry)
• will be no slacking at NO time
• thinks all day
• should not yell
• does not talk about nasty stuff
• make sure they try to get good grades
• always amazing and outstanding
• never bosses anyone around
• needs to read

Okay, so there were some really good essays, and many of them expressed themselves very well. But these were just classic.

Spelling Bee

I sympathize with these kids, I really do. I was that kid that always tried to get out in the classroom spelling bee so I wouldn't have to go on to perform in front of the school. Spelling is also an area of struggle for me so believe me when I say I don't judge these kids in any way. Nor do I intend to make fun of them. I just really enjoyed these spellings.

Word: end
Student: "end. e-d-n. end."

Word: join
Student: "join. g-o-i-n. join"

Word: explode
Student: "explode. e-x-p-l-o-d-e-d. explode."

That tricky English language. You never can trust it.

Educated? guess

These guys make me smile:

1.) Student is telling me about how he made his necklace with kite string and how amazingly strong it is. "It won't break!" as he yanks on it and it falls into his hand - broken.

2.) We are still working on the crime scene investigation played much like the game CLUE. One student is writing his hypothesis: "It's not really a hypothesis. It's just a guess. There's no 'educated' part of my guess. It's JUST a guess!"