In 4 days my little authors will take their standardized writing test. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of standardized testing…I know it’s necessary to hold teachers and schools accountable, but my kids get so nervous and they have worked so hard!  I could not be prouder of my class and I want them to feel empowered and confident about taking their writing test.

Enter: Warm-Up 4 Writing! For the past month we have been doing Warm-Up 4 Writing each Wednesday  to get our kids ready for the TAKS test. As you know we have been doing Writers Workshop this year, but my students still need to be able to crank out a composition in response to a prompt on test day. So each Wednesday we do a practice prompt to get them ready. We call it Warm-Up 4 Writing and we try to make it fun and exciting…my team even bought matching jogging suits and headbands :)

My team! The first day we did this we played Jock Jams, had our kids stretch and dance...it was so fun!

Only the nerdiest of teachers would wear these outfits every week, right? The funny thing is, we have started a Warm-Up 4 Writing craze at school! Over half the teachers have gotten the jogging suits…do you think it is enthusiasm for writing or because they can wear basically pajamas to work once a week? ;) We also have a school wide writing prompt that we call “Golden Pencil”, more about that another day!

Anyway, as the test approached we decided our kids needed a little incentive so we bought our whole grade level headbands and let them decorate them! They were hilarious and very creative with their decorating:

So there ya go, Warm-Up 4 Writing rocks the 4th grade! The kids really loved it and they are super pumped for their big test…and then it will be back to Writer’s Workshop!