Tried It Tuesday - Acrostic Poems with a Twist

Today I'm linking up with Holly from Fourth Grade Flippers for Tried It Tuesday!  I promise the posts about testing will end soon but it's going on for two weeks and I'm just trying to incorporate as many "fun" (or at least different) things to do with it as possible.  I snagged this idea from Heather at Working 4 the Classroom.  This was one of my infamous 1 A.M. finds that I HAD to try the next day so forgive the not so overly creative but I really liked how they turned out.  What did we make you might be asking???

Acrostic Poems for testing strategies using our names!!!  Since it is National Poetry Month and we did have the big test coming up, this was the perfect culmination :o)  I really like how Heather's turned out and maybe next year I will be more prepared to decorate ours a little more fancy like, but I couldn't have asked for more from my kiddos.  They had so much fun trying to come up with different strategies that fit for the letters of their name.

First we brainstormed different testing strategies by doing an AllWrite Round Robin with our table groups.  The strategies didn't have to begin with their name, it just had to be something that would help them on the test.  The first student wrote down what their strategy was and then the next student clockwise wrote down their strategy and this continued until the time was up.  Everyone put their idea in the center so it was visible and no one would repeat.  At the end of the time every group had about 15-20 different strategies.

Then they began to brainstorm for their name by rewriting those ideas their group came up with into sentences.  Once they were done I showed them my example and gave them construction paper, markers, and a few simple rules: your name had to be fun and colorful - get creative! and it had to take up the whole page.  This is what they came up with!

 

We hung them up outside in our hallway so they could see them every morning before testing and so the third graders who share our hallway with us would get some good ideas they might not have thought of.  I hope you enjoyed the idea and don't forget to head over to Holly's blog for other great ideas from some amazing bloggers!