Testing is starting Monday! My students have been working so hard to prepare and practice their skills. I still have a few hands on test prep ideas to share with you for keeping your students engaged during test prep and making it fun!
This activity is similar to the sentence surgery idea that has been spotted floating around Pinterest. Click on the image to see the pin and go straight to the original source.
I really love the different pieces that were used for the quotations and punctuation marks, but I needed something quick and easy and only had sentence strips at my disposal.
Here is a look at the centers that I created:
Pronoun Agreement Center:
For this activity, I wrote several sentences on sentence strips. I underlined words that could be replaced by a pronoun. Example: “Jessica‘s mom is on her way” or :My mother and I are going shopping to my mother and me’s favorite store.” Notice how some of them are correct with the noun and some have to have the pronoun. Some of the sentences included pronouns and nouns that needed to be replaced with plural pronouns. Next, I wrote each answer (the pronoun) on a different color sentence strip. I didn’t include any extra pronouns so the students could monitor and self check.
Usage Error Center:
For this center, I wanted the students to practice all those pesky usage errors (double negatives, homophones, and other tricky words.) However, I really wanted to make the kids think. So, this time when I wrote several sentences on sentence strips I also included sentences that were already written correctly.When I wrote the answers on blue sentence strips I included only the answers they would need and wrote correct on a few strips as well. This one was my favorite! I really liked the aspect of having some that were correct. That really got the debate and discussion going on with the groups. And it was true test prep style going on.
Dialogue Center:
This center was most like the sentence surgery from above. I included dialogue with speaker tags at the beginning and end and some split dialogue. I just wrote the punctuation marks on sentence strips and cut them out. Then, the students simply placed the punctuation mark cards on their sentence in the correct spot.
Have you used test prep centers in your room this year or in the past? I would love to hear how they have worked!
I love these ideas! And they definitely aren't just for test prep.
The kids love them! They are perfect for Daily Five centers or a workshop center. Or even for re-teaching days. The possibilities are endless!
Great stuff Jennifer! I hope you plan to post it on the linky party at http://teachingisagift.blogspot.ca/2013/04/test-prep-linky-party.html. It is still going strong and accepting new links until May 1st.
Sidney
I am going to head over tonight and link up my posts! I think I linked up one of them already. Thanks, Sidney!
Jennifer
What a fun way to prep for the tests!
Creating Lifelong Learners
I love these ideas!! We are in crunch time, and I am totally going to use these ideas. Thank you for sharing!!