April's OLW reflection/round - up

I can't believe that April has come to an end...two more months of school and so much left to do!  This is the point in the school year when I feel the most insecure - my kids will leave in just eight weeks...have I taught them well? enough? meaningfully? Even as I type this, they are in front of me, in rows, taking their New Jersey ASK tests.  So, what can I say as I reflect upon April's learning? Here goes:

• we really did enjoy taking apart the state test and learning how to "game it" - we spent much more time analyzing prompts and questions than we did doing monotonous practice tests.  We even came up with a dance to show that we were "workin' it!" with these strategies. Fun! But the best part is that today I see the three students who are "mine" in this testing room really working it - marking up the texts and the questions and completely focused on the task. YES!
• speaking of the ASK tests, I used everything I learned at TC's mini-institute on the Common Core to re-vamp my persuasive writing unit. How did this help? Well, I think it made my teaching much more focused and strategic - I know I have more work to do in this area, but we're off to a good start.  I feel that most of my summer will be spent working further with the common core, but the persuasive seems more or less "done".
• my blogging life continues to be rich and rewarding - it's wonderful to check in with so many dedicated teachers who are doing such amazing things in their  classrooms.  Whenever I feel overwhelmed or just "out of new ideas", I can wander into Maria's "classroom" and learn what she's up to - I'm immediately inspired and ready to get back into the swing of things. How awesome is that?!
• finally, we're getting to the Civil War era in  my classroom, which means even more project based learning.  I'm hoping  to get a social studies day meme going one day so that we can share our ideas/resources one day a week - just as some of us meet for Slice of Life on Tuesdays or Poetry Fridays. Anyone game?

Here are some other OLW reflections:
Tracy  at Thinking Stems
Maria at Teaching in the 21st. Century
Barbara at Wondering through 2012
Melissa at Figuring out how the pieces fit