In Between Tests

Sometimes kidlets just need to cut stuff up.

For example, when they are in the middle of a six-week testing window, and have to spend waaaaay too much time sitting in front of a computer screen. 

Give them some surgical masks and gloves, a pair of scissors, and some cadaver sentences. Then turn them loose! Chopping up sentences and splattering sentence guts all over some sentence skeletons is the best testing therapy there is!

If the kidlets happen to be 7th graders who have to take five multi-hour tests over the next few weeks, I recommend giving them a day to cut stuff up AND run around by making the dissection activity a relay race.

For that, you will need a surgical suite, so the kidlets don't trip over backpacks or jackets in the classroom. You will also need to remind them over and over and over that they are not allowed to run with the scissors. If you fail to remind them not to run with scissors, there is a good chance one or more of them will be in need of actual surgery before the race is through.

It is amazing how much fun grammar relays can be... when compared to sitting in front of a computer screen for four hours earlier in the week.

It also helps to have brilliant kidlets, which I just so happen to have piles of at the moment.

Brilliant, and loud, and squirrely, and (since they are almost 8th graders) a little fuzzy and kind of stinky. But none of them ran with scissors! 

If you need something else to inject a little fun into the testing window, letting the kidlets nominate literary heroes and villains for a tournament also works well.

After a couple weeks of voting, we ended up with the 2015 champion.

If only defeating the big, hairy, slobbery, fanged tests was as easy...