7 Ideas for Test Prep in Middle School

Test Prep… two of the most DREADED words for teachers and students alike. We all know it is coming, we all know it is (somewhat) necessary, and we all know that if we don’t try to make it fun it will be the death of both of us.

Test prep doesn’t have be dull and boring. It doesn’t have to be “sit and get”. Test prep can be fun! It can be engaging! And, test prep can be some of the most fun days in your classroom…. if you take the time to make them that way!

There are plenty of ways to make test prep fun again:

1. Bring out the Task Cards that you have used throughout the year. Have a student randomly select one set of them and play Quiz, Quiz, Trade throughout the class.
2. Use those matching task cards and some headbands where students have to find out what is on their card and find their match within the classroom. This really boosts the use of vocabulary!
3. With students in groups, place individual task cards under your document camera (or within Google Classroom) and race to see who can correctly answer them first. A little friendly competition never hurts!
4. Trashketball – Seriously this is one of the most LOVED games with my boys! They will do just about anything to be able to throw things in the classroom! We didn’t always trash our papers because I had them working on dry erase boards in tandem with #3 and then we tossed the Nerf Basketball! I would definitely suggest having a back-up ball for this as well!
5. Left, Right, Answer – Simple to set up, fun to play and never the same from day to day! Each group gets a different set of task cards and “graveyard” and then each person gets a recording sheet. Fun and engaging way to review various concepts and easy to differentiate throughout your classroom. And, if you want an additional way to play, check out the FREE spinner that you can add to your Left, Right, Answer today only available in the FREEBIE Resource Library (become a VIP today)!
6. And you know those Interactive Notebooks that you have been keeping all year? Create a scavenger hunt and partner students up to find the answers to the questions you have created! This not only keeps them accountable but will give them some time to write down any missing information as well!
7. Use the last few minutes of class each day to institute a Post It, Prove It question to review concepts throughout the year. No kid (or teacher) will turn down being able to use a Post it to make an anchor chart. And did you know that you could print on Post Its? This way you could easily just hand out the question already on the Post It!

Have you tried any of these with your classes? Looking forward to trying one this year?