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Making Test Prep Fun

  • March 16, 2014, 5:37 p.m.

We all know that both teachers and students alike dread test preparation. The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a drag! Here are 4 ways to make test prep fun and beneficial.

1. Create a Theme!
Creating a theme like the Olympics, Class Camp, Learning With The Stars, or The Super Bowl can create excitement and motivation among students. It’s important to make this believable and what I mean by that, is to decorate your classroom, wear a costume, or have students wear or do something to go along with the theme.

Here are some ideas to pair with your theme!

  • Wear a whistle or head band
  • Hand out pencils or medals
  • Create team names
  • Make Banners to hang outside the classroom
  • Play Theme Songs (i.e. American Idol Theme Song/ Click Here to hear it!)

2. Make it a Game!
It’s no secret that kids love games! Take a skill or strategy that has not been mastered by most of your students and begin with a mini lesson. For practice, create a class competition to practice the skill. For example, capitalization is a huge challenge for my students. After teaching the mini lesson on capitalization rules, I organize the students into teams and rotate the teams through centers or “games” where they complete capitalization practice activities. The finale is an “Around the World” scenario where I have note cards with various general and specific nouns. The students compete to identify if the noun should be capitalized and give the rule the word follows. For prizes, I give pencils.

test prep game for elementary

3. Give Choices
When the student has to make a choice, the student owns their learning. In my classroom, writing is our struggle. I wanted to have my students writing all the time and in all subjects. In our schedule we have a time set aside for RTI. During this time, I give the students a tic-tac-toe chart to choose their writing activity to practice that day. As I work with a group of students, the others are working on writing but writing that is tailored to their interest.

Click here to view our class’ tic-tac-toe chart for this week!

4. Help Students Set Learning Goals
Just like adults, students need identify their strengths and weaknesses. If students don’t know what to improve on, how will they be able to improve? Set goals with your students and celebrate victories. Let parents in on the goals and give them ideas of how to practice at home. Parents can be like cheerleaders on the sidelines.

helping students set learning games

Best of luck teachers and students. It’s going to be great!

-Randi Anderson