Testy

TEACHING TO THE TEST: Our academic endeavors today were all about The Test. Specifically, the Measure of Student Performance (MSP), an annual exam that Washington State students in grades 3-8 must take.

This will be CJ's third year of taking it, so he's a veteran. It will be Bee's first go round.

We printed out practice tests (based on previous years' problems) from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction Web site. Annabelle has to take reading and math tests this year. CJ has to take reading, math and science.

We spent some time talking about mechanics - properly filling in those little bubbles, writing inside the lines, that type of stuff. And we spent some time on psychology - thinking like the people who wrote the test. What are *they* asking you? What do *they* want to see? We discussed strategies for properly and completely answering a question (often, in part, by restating it). And then, they actually took the math and reading practice tests. I was really pleased with how well they did and I'm sure it gave them great confidence going in to next week.

Mostly our review and practice today was painless, but I simply *must* share with you that the "quick guide" (yes, they used those exact words) to the math practice test for CJ was 464 PDF pages long. For reals. (And yes, I looked at it all this morning.)

"What's the long guide?" Christian wondered aloud when I told him about it tonight.

Good question.

SPLASHDOWN: Today promised temps upwards of 80 F, and by 7 a.m., I'd promised the kids we'd make our first trek to Seattle Center's International Fountain for some summer-style fun!

On the way there, we drove on Mercer, a main east-west thoroughfare that's being converted to two-way traffic between I-5 and the waterfront. Part of the project includes re-striping the roads, apparently by department of transportation people who have medicinal marijuana cards ...

This would actually be kind of funny, if I didn't live in Seattle and know just how really, needlessly awful most Seattle Department of Transportation Projects are. But back to the fun. ...

The fountain was glorious as always! Look at celebratory CJ in the photo - he was as excited as I've seen him in MONTHS.

Annabelle was digging it, too, of course.

The kids reveled in the cool shower - and the great soundtrack. The fountain is choreographed to music, and they played everything from Beethoven to The Kingsmen to Jimi Hendrix to Nirvana while we were there.

The only downer was the drone of helicopters overhead. It's May Day, and if you live in Seattle, that means it's time for a few hundred stupid people to take to the streets and try to start a riot.

None of that bothered this seagull, who had great timing. It landed and bathed and drank between fountain outbursts, managing never to get shot off by a powerful water jet.

We were even treated to fountain rainbows before we left. Sweet!