Today was all about the state 4th grade mathematics test.....and that's all I'm gonna say about it!

Poetry and Plays

My sweet husband noticed that I left my snack bag at home which I bring to school every Monday. Just like every wonderful husband, he brought it to me on his way to work. Thanks, Honey!

Today was the last day to gear up for our state test, STAAR, so I spent it looking at two genres: poetry and plays. I have an excellent power point that reviews technical vocabulary that I found on the web. It was a great review and the students really know their stuff. Yeah! For my play review, I found two sites on the web that were awesome for reader's theater scripts: www.thereadinglady.com and www.thebestclass.org.......these two sites are AWESOME! We chose to use the play Meanwhile..... Back at the Ranch. We ended our ELA period reading several books: Good News! Bad News!, Even More Parts, and That's Good! That's Bad!.

Ready to Test!

Getting ready in the classroom for state testing next week, the STAAR. I had to cover all my instructional posters and student work on my walls with paper. I could take it all down , but I hate a barren room. We reviewed reading concepts by revisiting power points and playing jeopardy. The Frogs vs. The Queens.....The Frogs won and The Queens added drama to that which made them "Drama Queens". One of the Power Points we viewed was on 'Making Connections'...text to self, text to text, and text to world. I then read Charlie the Ranch Dog, which I must say is the cutest book. Lots of giggles came from the 4th graders. Students were asked to make text to self connections. Their responses were quite thoughtful and deep. So, check out this book.

First Day Blog

This is my first day working with blogger. Some things are quite confusing, but I am determined to set up a blog spot for 4th grade teachers over the next month. Heck....I have all summer coming up to get this thing up and moving. I am very encouraged by all the great sites that I have seen so far.