Five for Friday-ish

It has been a very long time since I have blogged and even longer since I linked up with Kacey at Doodle Bugs Teaching for Five for Friday. 

I am trying to get back into blogging regularly and think this is the perfect way to start. 

A couple of weeks ago I was inspired by one of my favorite IGers, Rachel at Third Grade Cupcakes. She posted the most adorable countdown to PARCC, so I borrowed and tweaked this idea to use as a countdown to MCAS. 

Monday was 2 days to the test and the kiddos were able to choose their own seats. 

Continuing with our MCAS countdown, one day before testing, kiddos were able to write with pen for the day! 

Wednesday brought the first day of testing. And with the first day of testing came motivational letters from my students parents. Extra Special Teaching has a Parent Testing Letter freebie on TPT that I sent home with all of my students and the looks on their faces when they received their parents' letter were priceless! Click on the link below to check out the great resource! 

I could not believe how hard my kiddos worked this year on THE TEST! In 8 years, I have never had a group of kiddos that worked as long and as hard as these kiddos! These students earned themselves a little treat after testing on Thursday! 

This treat contained a fancy mechanical pencil, scented Crayola marker (we are obsessed with all things smelly!) and a brag tag for Excellent Effort on ELA MCAS. I was able to use the adorable Valentine treat bags that I never used on Valentine's, too! :o)

Finally, it is that time of year in 4th grade when spring fever sets in. I have a handful of difficult boys in my class this year, and lately they are in serious need of taking more control over their behavior. In order to review how to have good character, we have been reviewing character traits with read alouds and finding evidence of these traits in our Wonder read aloud. 

 Thanks for reading! XoXo