It’s that time of year! Many schools are doing testing for upper grades so the students have a lot to work on. It can be a little stressful for them because they may be feeling pressure to do well. That’s why we love to get our students excited about testing! 

Finding fun ways to incorporate test prep helps students become less stressed about testing and even excited and more motivated to review.  Most years our school brainstorms a theme for testing. Adding themes makes it less drab and more engaging, especially if they love the theme! 

Here’s how to choose your  theme and incorporate it into testing time in a fun way!

There are so many themes you could go with. It could be candy bar themes, sports, popular books, movies, etc.  When you have your theme established, come up with a motivating catchphrase that relates to the theme and decorate your classrooms and hallways! 

Here’s how we did it in my school. The teachers met and discussed what our students as a whole were really into.  Our list consisted of gaming, Among Us, and stickers! So we decided that we would go with video games and gaming! We started with “LEVEL UP” as our catchphrase and then counted how many weeks we wanted to focus on reviewing. 

Here is our four weeks of testing themes

Week 1: Pac Man

Week 2: Mario

Week 3: Minecraft

Week 4: Among Us

These games were the ones our students were playing the most. Each week students will have four challenges based on the theme. We incorporated Legos for hands on learning!

We use released testing problems and change the wordings to fit our theme. This increases engagement and our students love it!

I hope your students love these testing ideas as much as ours did! There are so many ways you can individualize it to fit in with your students interests.