Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Happy TAKS Tuesday!

For those of us living in Texas with children in the public school system, today is the start of TAKS Testing for 3rd grade through 11th grade (assuming they pass prior to their Sr. year?).   Between today and late April, students will take a series of tests measuring their knowledge of Writing, Math, Science, History, and Language Arts.  Each grade level has it's own subject matter to be tested.  This is HUGE in Texas public schools.  This test is the measuring tool used to advance elementary students from one grade to the next, regardless of their grades for the year. 

This test is so very important that school systems are busy teaching the terminology and verbiage of the tests, as well as the subject content.  Students are drilled daily about what to expect and how to appropriately answer the questions.  Each day, my 4th grader completes no less than 5 worksheets directed at teaching her the TAKS test material.  Sometimes it seems like it's overkill! 

So with that said, the teachers have continually stressed the importance of getting a good night's sleep, a healthy breakfast, and a healthy snack for the test day. In keeping with the teacher's advice, Briley has been overly conscious about her sleep schedule and our choices for breakfast.  In other words, she has nagged me to death about what I was going to prepare for her for breakfast! :)  I'm sure her teacher will be pleased to know that we followed the guidelines and both Briley and Bailey had a huge breakfast of pigs in a blanket and fruit.  Hopefully their minds are alert and busily writing a wonderful story today.  (Today was the Writing portion for 4th and 10th grade.)

One TAKS testing day down!

Oh and since no blog post of mine would be complete without some kind of incident... let me assure you this morning was not without incident!  Not only did I awake a full 45 minutes earlier than usual, just so I could make sure both of the girls were bright eyed and bushy tailed... but we still needed to run by the barn and feed the pigs.  No big deal - we do this every day --- but apparently today EVERY parent that usually sends their child off on the school bus decided to drive them to school, because the morning rush of school traffic was horrible.  We crept and crawled along like snails... UGH!  So you know what that means... yep... we were still running late! 

After a quick little change was made in our drop-off routine, we were back on track and Bailey was going to feed their pigs without Briley - all is good -  until Bailey gets ready to get out of the car and remembers that she doesn't have a PENCIL for the test!  Really??  A pencil??? There are no less than 100 extra pencils at the house, easy to see and get to, as needed.  Really?? You forgot a pencil??  Don't you carry one with you anyway?  Don't you carry MORE than ONE with you?? Oh My Gosh!!  Typical Bailey!

Dear Lord, please be with Bailey!  I fear this is going to be a long day for her!  :)

1 comment:

Sarah said...

That's interesting that Texas spreads it out over so many weeks! My experiences in the Tennessee and Georgia school systems included week long drudgery as we took care of our annual testing. Texas's method makes more sense to me!

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