I am somewhat recovered from the flu, but as of today (Sunday) am still not firing on all cylinders! I think it must hit us old people pretty hard... My students were very forgiving of my impatience last week, and I hope I am off to a better start on Monday.
Last Friday I gave another workbook-based quiz, an even easier version of the one we took two weeks ago (see post entry: "Important Parent Update."). My goal was to have students reading every night to give them the background knowledge for the simple vocabulary final test I gave on Friday. Each day they answered workbook questions matching the two page reading from the night before. To be fair, I allowed them to take their workbooks home and correct their mistakes each night. This took place from Monday through Thursday. I graded these two workbook pages Thursday night and they are taped to page 31 beside last week's workbook pages. I could not believe my eyes when I graded many of them, as the grades were actually worse than the week before. On Friday, many vocabulary test grades reflected the same poor preparation.
Tomorrow (Monday) I am going to show a good video that covers the same information from the flash cards they made, the information they read, the notepages in the interactive notebook, and the review I did in class. Then, on Wednesday, those students who have a parent signature on their vocabulary test (taped in the Interactive notebook on the next page after their final report card grade) may take another version of the vocabulary test for a new grade. At that point we must move on to the unit on energy.
