We had so much fun in class yesterday! It really was one of those totally perfect mornings where everyone was engaged, cooperative, and super productive. What were we doing? Pumping ourselves up for our last round of state tests. What??? Fun and tests in the same sentence? Yup!
I had two activities going. First, students were making rock buddies. I asked students to bring in a rock from home that fit nicely in the palm of their hand– not too big, not too small. I didn’t tell them what we’d be doing with the rocks until they brought them to school. Then we painted the rocks all kinds of fun, bright colors.
When the rocks dried, we used lots of glue, feathers, google eyes, and Sharpies to decorate them. Regular glue works just fine, but it takes quite a bit to get them to stick. They were pumped to walk in and see this stuff on the table!
Since I couldn’t have everyone painting at once, we also made these cute rock stars from Teachers Pay Teachers.
By the end of the day, our projects were dry and ready to remind us of all the awesome things we know to do in order to be successful on our tests this week. Look how fun they are!
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Precious! Love the rock starts!
Brandee @ Creating Lifelong Learners
This is such a great idea! I love it! It is too late for me now to use it this year for testing but I might try it for the end of the year and will definitely write down for testing next year! Thanks for sharing! :o)
Tara
TeachingwithTWitte
Those are so fun! What a great activity to do among testing. My kids get so excited when they see art materials on the back table too!
Sara 🙂
Smiling In Second Grade
Great idea!! We used a similar activity during our study of rocks and minerals. We brought back the old "Pet Rock" and the kids made their own pet rock…they were wonderful! They also wrote a story based around particular questions about their rock…age, color, and what their Pet Rock would do while they were away at school. Some of their rocks were pretty ornery while they were away!
Those little rockstars are SO cute! Thanks for sharing!
Annie
Three Cheers for First Grade!