Skip to main content

Quizzes

Fairly routinely I do a weekly "If you were paying attention in class" quiz. It is generally a multiple choice/short answer format anywhere from 10-15 questions. I started to have students glue in their quizzes to their notebook and I like the idea. I don't do it with tests, since they tend to be longer. Here are some things though to consider:

- I am trying to keep the science notebooks to one book this year and not bleed over to a second notebook. This means that space is at a premium. I stopped gluing quizzes in around December. I am also trying to conduct my weekly quiz through my websites quiz feature - it gets graded for you and uses less paper (website I use to create my own website is School World at www.myteacherpages.com).
- It is nearly impossible to make a 10 question quiz that will fit on one side of the book unless you use a publisher catalog format (see previous posts). Most of my weekly quizzes have been running about 15 questions and take up a two page spread.
- I glue in after I have graded. Using the work room cutting board or just a handy pair of scissors to cut in half.
- I use to send the notebooks home and require that students have parents sign the quiz page to indicate that they had seen it.

Some teachers I have shown my books to like having the quizzes in the notebook. It really is a personal preference.

Comments

Anonymous said…
I've put the quizzes in the notebook before, and my issue was it actually ate up a two page spread - space being at a premium as you say. :)

I think a good balance to that is the envelope at the back of the notebook to hold returned quizzes - maybe a comment sheet could be glued onto the envelope with a place for parent signatures?

hmmmmmmmm :)

awesome blog, btw
Eve Heaton said…
Thanks for the blog compliment. It helped to have it when I was talking about notebooking at USC. I like the comment sheet suggestions. I've stopped gluing quizzes in for the same reason you mentioned - space. Particularily since I would like to have their full year in one notebook and not split between two. Next year you need to showcase your humanities notebooks. There were heaps of teachers interested in them for social studies.

Popular posts from this blog

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock&

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.

Rock Cycle Activity

Today I got to spend the day with a 3rd grade science teacher doing a rock cycle activity. She had asked for help a couple of weekends ago to find some engaging rock cycle activities for her students. I quickly did a Pinterest search and came up with a link to a middle school blog where they featured a fun looking rock cycle station activity. That website took me to the originating activity site - Illinois State Museum Geology Online and their Ride the Rock Cycle activity . I read through it and felt it was doable for third graders (although I was a little nervous about the cartooning). I offered my help and we put together the activity. The kids did it WONDERFULLY. It was one of those lesson you wish was observed (but of course never is :) They are on an alternating science schedule so she only had two of the four classes today but it was a good sampling of children. She had one class that had a high portion of struggling learners and the second class had a high