Busy, Busy

Oops! I keep thinking about blogging. Does that count? I guess not. I have been insanely busy the last few weeks.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but I'M GOING TO HAWAII! Next week! I have a singing competition and it happens to be in Honolulu. It also happens to be during school. Why couldn't it be during Fall Break?! Sooo, I have been working my little tail off trying to get everything done and ready. I've got to do sub plans for an entire week, plan for the week after since I won't be any good to anyone, and a million other things. So it has been insane around here. I've also left my camera at school 2 weekends in a row, so I haven't had any fun pictures to upload. i do have some though. Maybe on my super long plane ride, I will be able to do some blogging. We'll see. I did want to post one cute thing though!

This week is Red Ribbon Week. We are having a door decorating contest. I so did not want to add another thing to my to do list, but now that it's done, I LOVE it. It is so cute and I wish I could keep it up all year. Look, look, look! It fits my classroom perfectly. :)

Here it is closed with the palm tree on top.

here it is open into my classroom. I like it both ways. 

I hope we win, but even if we don't, I like it, the kids like it, and that's all that matters, right? Sort of. :) Have I mentioned I'm competitive?! :) 

Anyway, I am off to bed, but I wanted to share some cuteness. Hopefully, after Hawaii, things will settle down for me and I will be back here like normal.

Be fun and Fabulous!

~Mrs. Sweeney

Assessment Queen!

Ha! Want to know something funny. All through school and student teaching, I constantly felt that I was lacking in the assessment category. That was the area I put that needed improvement every time I was asked. I wasn't good at making them up, and of course, I hated giving them. There are so much more fun things we could be doing rather than testing! :) But alas, the world of teaching is a lot about testing. So, apparently I turned that weakness into a strength and didn't even know it! I guess it just came gradually with time, but now it seems most of what I do is making tests! I made all of the assessments for our grade level this year. I made many for you on Teachers pay Teachers, and I've made some more!

We got a new Reading series this year, McGraw Hill's Reading Wonders. We noticed that they didn't have a weekly assessment that went with the story for the week. The booklet they gave us is like a 6 page test and it doesn't cover anything about the story. I wanted to be able to gauge the skill and what they were getting from what we had worked on all week long, so I started making a weekly test for the story. Then my team started using it, and what do you know... another TpT product was born. I figure lot of you could use these weekly tests as well. I might as well share.

Unit One is probably done for most of you, but I do have that ready to go. You can get it for next year. :)

Unit 2 is ready to go for you now. Click on the picture below to get it on TpT. I've also included the info sheet so you can see what you are getting and a sample sheet so you can see what page 1 of a test looks like. I hope they help you out. They will be scaffolded as the Units progress. Right now, I am reading the test out loud to the students. I will start letting them read it after Christmas probably. They are simple enough that they can be read on their own now as well. I just want to get them used to taking the test, so I can for sure see what they know, rather than maybe a guess because they didn't read it correctly. I will be adding Unit 3 soon. I hope you enjoy and they make life easier for you!

Fall Break is over for us! I can't believe it goes by so quickly, but at the same time seems so long! I am going to be struggling in the morning, that's for sure! 

Be fun and fabulous!

~Mrs. Sweeney

Assessments Galore!

Woohoo! It's F A L L     B R E A K! Don't get me wrong. I love my kiddos and love to teach, but boy, have I missed sleep! :) We aren't doing anything special this week, so I finally feel like I can stop running all over the place and just relax and take things slow. Plus, I get to work on things that I've not had time for like my Common Core Assessments Packs that I've been working on for weeks!

Our team does common assessments for the whole grade level every 3 weeks. We do this to get an accurate picture of where each child is and where we might need to intervene. I happened to be the one to make them all for the grade level, so I get to share them with you! We took each standard and made an assessment to match. We even did them in smaller tiered- incremements so we aren't moving on if the kiddos aren't getting the basics.

We give the assessment to every child throughout the grade level. Then, for those kiddos that might be struggling or just aren't there yet, we usually re-teach the skill in a small intervention group.  I made a Form B or 2nd assessment so we can re-test after the skill has been re-taught. Hopefully, by this point they've mastered the skill. If not, further intervention is needed and we go from there.

So, here are the assessments packets I've got for you today!

This is my Reading Foundations Assessment for skill 1.RF.2. It's a Form A and For B for each of the 4 subgroups. It gives the standard you are assessing, the teacher and student instructions, and the assessment form. It is a quick, easy way to assess your students often so you always know what they are mastering. It's a great price, so click on the picture above to check it out today!

Finally, I've combined my Math Common Core Assessments into one, big mega pack. It's 47 pages of Math Assessments! That's a lot of Math! That's a lost of assessments! Believe me, this pack will make your life much easier by giving you the data you need, and helps you get a firm grasp on what your kiddos are retaining. This packet tests all the skills for Operations and Algebraic Equations, as well as Numbers and Operations in Base Ten. I have these assessments in separate packs, specific to the standard, but this is the better deal because you get all of them in one for a lower price. Click on the picture below to take you to my TpT store.

Be fun and fabulous!

~Mrs. Sweeney