No More Rest Time

Last week the rest mats were sent home for the rest of the school year and I am almost certain cheers were heard around the world that day. Then the question was asked "What are we going to do since we don't have rest time any more?"  Well, like I have told my boys and girls before - it is always good to have a Plan B.  I changed the structure of our Accelerated Reader and Accelerated Math time to fill in our gap in our schedule.

Our Accelerated Math or AM time is now in the afternoon.  AM is a progress monitoring software tool that monitors and manages math skills.  The program creates math assignments tailored to each students current level.  The computer automatically scores all math practices, assignments and tests. The TOPS reports are printed out and sent home with each child to keep parents updated on their child's progress.   Each skill/objective is individually paced for each child.  AM is used as a supplement to our regular math curriculum.

Our Accelerated Reader or AR time has also been moved to the afternoon.  AR is also a progress monitoring software for monitoring the practice and assessment of reading.  It is designed to increase comprehension skills and foster a love of reading.  After reading their AR book at home with parents, the boys and girls take an AR test on the computer.  Most tests are voice generated if not the teacher or classroom para  reads the test questions to the student.  There are 5 book questions on each test.  The kindergartners are responsible for answering the multiple choice questions.  The computer scores the test.  TOPS reports are printed out and sent home to keep parents appraised of their child's progress.  During our AR time there are boys and girls who are not quite ready to take their  AR test, those boys and girls are reading books from their book boxes.  They are allowed to find a comfy spot with a comfy pillow and just read , read, READ!