Days Leading to End of the Year Testing

As the end of the year is approaching, the days are getting longer, and my finger nails are getting shorter. For the past few weeks, we have been reviewing and getting ready for testing, but what I want to focus on in this post is confidence building. We can build academic knowledge through whole group, small group, independent work. We can be as creative as we want when it comes to content, but what we sometimes fail to realize is that often even students who are on grade level and know the content lack in other areas.

Confidence in particular can be a huge struggle. One of my biggest goals this school year has been to build my students' confidence and show them that they are smart, capable , creative, and should never let something like a test intimidate them. We've done many team building and confidence building activities throughout the year, but I can see the pressure of the EOG getting to them now that it is so close.

Here are a few activities I am doing this week (1 each day) to remind my students that they should always believe in themselves.

1. I took out popsicle sticks with students' names from my jar and gave each student one with someone else's name. They had to write why they are proud of the person they got, then wrapped their writing (on a sticky note) around the popsicle stick and I will pass them  back to the students they belong to the day before the test. My big goal is to create a community and have my students recognize each other's strengths and know that everyone has something good he/she brings to the table. I modeled a few appropriate responses to this writing prompt to pre correct .

2. I wrote an inspirational sticky note for each student for the day of the test (new one for each day of the test). I will place these along with a juice box and a granola bar on their tables the morning of the test. Students then will place their names and the stickies on the books they will pick out to read after the test. That way the sticky won't get accidentally left out in the middle of the test and after the test they can have one more reminder of how smart they are.



3. In the beginning of the year, I had my students help me write down as many adjectives as possible describing characteristics. Then, each student got a sticky on his/her back. They walked around and wrote positive adjectives describing each other. Each child had to write at least on 10 other children's stickies. Finally, we sat in a circle and students all took off their stickies at the same time. They each had an opportunity to share how the activity made them feel and what surprised them or to "pass". I always participate in this activity with my students. In the beginning of t his week (1 week before testing), I reminded my students about this activity and we went over adjectives again, completed the same activity except this time they shared what changed based on what other's wrote from the beginning of the year to now and what surprised them or to "pass". I saw their excited faces as they realized how well they've actually gotten to know each other and that students who were once described "shy" were now described as "funny," "creative", and "awesome". Here is what was on my back and it truly made me tear up because it helped me realize that I did my job this year and I did it well.




4. Finally, tomorrow I am going to have my students write down their fears about testing and the end of the year on a piece of paper, share them with the class if they feel comfortable, ball them up and throw them away in the trash. After they throw away their fears, they will pick up a "strength" from my basket and they will each describe how they will utilize that strength.



My goal is for my students to always know they are smart, they can do anything they put their minds to, and that they are cared about. Confidence can take us a long way and at the end of the day I want them to  make the choice to believe in themselves and have that confidence, the confidence I've had in them all year.

Sincerely,

A proud teacher