TAKS RELEASE DAY. Poor kiddos were stuck in chairs ALL day long working on a practice writing TAKS test. For the most part they did good though. Mrs. Cade and I worked on grading some of the writing. It’s really a difficult thing to do. You become biased. Tomorrow all three 4th grade teachers and 3 student teachers are meeting to grade them. Then we will get a score from that.
I spent the majority of the day in our pod (a small room that connects to all four rooms, basically in the center). One of our students needs modifications, particularly reading aloud. So, he and I sat in there. He read aloud and did his test, and I worked on lesson plans. Really today was a blessing in disguise. I needed time to work on lessons. Got stuff done finally!
Mrs. Cade and I made a deal with the kids. A rather large deal. If ALL the students pass the test :
1. Mrs. Cade and I will let the kids spray our hair with fun colors
2. Kelsi, Mrs. Cade’s daughter, will visit. They all love her.
3. Kelsi’s boyfriend, a gymnast, will do a flip for every 4 scored on the writing part of the test. (4 is the highest you can get – ranges 0-4)
4. Mrs. Cade will do a cartwheel for every 4 scored
5. I will put my legs behind my head for every 4 scored
Well, for this test not everyone passed. Mrs. Cade and I don’t have to deal with the hair spray YET. If they all pass the real one – we will! … But this is already a 4 and I have a feeling there will be a couple more. I need to start stretching so I don’t break my legs off. Definitely should not have agreed to that condition, but they wanted it. Any incentive we can give them to do well is worth it. Of course, there were the few today that really didn’t care at all (the few that SHOULD care) and basically finished in a matter of minutes.
We did have a few good papers though. Some of our students, if they would practice their skills, could become great writers. The prompt was: Write a composition about your favorite adventure. The boys loved it…girls not so much. One boy, I hate to say it – but my favorite – wrote about his day in the woods and this hidden trail he found. He described part of his adventure (where he came to some water) like this: The water sparkled like diamonds. There was a large stick in the water. I walked on it like I would on a rope at a carnival. ………..Pretty great.
At recess, we had a mini-drama situation. The little clique of girls – mean ones- started on the uni-brow kick. They started making fun of anyone they could. The tall girl in my class became the butt of their jokes today. Poor thing. She doesn’t break easily. Never gets upset or cries. Today…they broke her. She was so upset. The girls kept making fun of her. We didn’t notice until we saw her against the building crying. The funny thing is – She is probably the prettiest girl in the 4th grade and she DOESN’T even have a uni-brow. Mrs. Cade and I told her she was way to pretty to be getting upset and those girls were just jealous. Watching her sit there though made me teary eyed. I really hated seeing her like that- letting those girls get to her- her self esteem basically plummeting. Poor baby.
The day went by quickly…real quick. Tomorrow is Friday. I can’t wait to be home. Time to REST!!!
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