Monday, March 2, 2009

ISAT and the Art Room

Last Thursday it came to Mrs. Carey and my attention that our schedule will be changing today through Wednesday due to ISATs. It hasn't been a big mystery in the school that the ISATs would be happening, and we were doing our part in helping get the students ready through the art environment. We've set timers saying that they cannot talk or get help during the 10/15 minutes that the alarm was set. We did some Smartboard activities that included fill-in-the-dot questions that tested the students' knowledge on topics recently explored through the project they completed and video the students watched. With all this preparation why was it only two days before the tests did we learn of the change in our schedule?
If you've kept yourself updated on the past several months of postings, than you would know that the 3rd grade general classroom is nuts. Last week they had 1 substitute leave halfway through the day, and another one saying that her first stop after leaving the building was a liquor store (which she stated before this comment that this was not her regular behavior). Apparently last week one of these students had attempted to strangle another one of the students. The principal was meeting with several of the parents/guardian of these students. When one of them said that her own nephew needed to be suspended for his actions the principal said that "she had not decided yet". mhmm.... Personally, and I don't believe there is any room for argument on the issue, when physical violence e nters into the equation actions must be swift and powerful.
Since the third graders are under a bunch of stress with tests , and having to really be on their best behavior in order to concentrate for their ISATs, we are doing a 1-day pop-up project with them.
We showed them different types of pop-ups that they can do – from layer pop-ups to mouth pop-ups; the castle above is the example I made for them to see, plus the house was done by one of the students.

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