Revised APPR Assessments Part 1: Kindergarten

I didn't really share the outcome of my post-assessments last year, mainly due to the fact that there was some confusion around them with calculations.  In the end, I "passed" and did all right, but my results weren't exactly where I wanted them to be for the post-assessment scores.  Thus, I revamped two of my assessments.  Last year, I did my SLO assessments in 5th, 2nd, 1st and Kindergarten.  My LLO was in 4th grade.  Lucky for me, I have one less to do this year!  This year, my SLO assessments are with Studio Art, Art 7, and 1st grade and I chose to use Kindergarten for my LLO so I could revamp my rubrics.

Today is our first Staff Development day and luckily, I have no place to be except in my classrooms working on my SLOs and LLO, which are technically due today!  In the next few posts, I'm going to share with you my old assessments from last year and what I plan on doing differently this year.  I'll also share with you how I am setting my goals, as I am doing something completely different this year as well.

Last year I did a cutting and gluing rubric and I had a 97% success rate at students passing, which was great, but made it seem as though the assessment wasn't quite as rigorous as it should have been.  So, this year, I changed up my plans for the Kindergarten assessment, and I've actually changed my mind twice about the pre-assessment.  Back in September I shared a post with my ideas for this year, which you can see here.  I originally gave students a shape sheet with fewer shapes and then a quiz that quizzed them on shapes, lines and basic color theory.  I was struggling to figure out how I would make sure those kinders could read their color words by the end of the year to take a "quiz" (since I would essentially have to create a test bank), and then I decided to scratch that idea, after I had already given out that assessment.

Now, I've decided to continue using the shape sheet for cutting and gluing but also the Hey Diddle Diddle Shape Cow project we just did.  This way, I am still assessing their cutting and gluing skills, but also their ability to draw shapes, their use of crayons and how they color.  As I looked at all of these projects, I realized that even though I was trying to teach them how to use the shapes and how to color properly, it's going to take a while for them to improve, so I should still be able to show growth.

  

These are the two activities being used for the kindergarten pre-assessment...

And these are the two rubrics being used for the kindergarten pre-assessments...

At the end of the year, students will then be assessed on cutting & gluing, as well as their coloring and shape skills all in one project...the primary playground project!  In that project, students have to cut out their own shapes and create a playground.  It will assess their ability to cut out shapes that are discernible from one another, how well they glue the shapes down (still using the dot glue method), and how well they utilize their entire paper.  Last year I did this as a review projects for primary colors and shapes, but it'll make a great end of the year assessment, I think.  Instead of having the students do it on 9"x12" paper, I'll give them the bigger sheets like I did for their pre-assessment cows.

 

Two kindergarten examples from last year, done back in February.

And this is the revamped rubric for assessing the post-assessment.

I know these rubrics are hard to read...I'm doing this at school right now and don't have a nicer way of taking a screen shot, so you can find them on the SmARTteacher.

Primary Playgrounds: A Review in Shape and Primary Colors!

I saw this project on Pinterest (the link on Pinterest takes you to the K-8 Art blog...) so I used it and altered it to my students.  I did this for my Kindergarteners as an "in-between" filler projects between units.  Two of my three classes have done this project, and the other will be doing it this week while the other two classes catch up.

The teacher at K-8 Art described giving each table a tray of pre-cut shapes, however since I've been working on shapes since the beginning of the year, I simply gave each student a 4"x6" piece of  red, yellow and blue construction paper.  This was a great review of the primary colors, as well as shapes.  

Before beginning, I showed students the three colors and asked what they knew or remembered about them.  I'd say a good 2/3 of the class remembered they were called the primary colors, which is promising!  I then showed them the examples from the K-8 Art blog and then reviewed with students the shapes that were used to build the playgrounds.

We took one day to cut and glue (with glue sticks) the playground together, and then another day to color the background (which was another good review for craftsmanship, details and a horizon line!).  Since my pre- and post-assessment in Kindergarten for APPR deals with cutting and gluing shapes, this is an excellent review for the middle of the year!  (Disclaimer:  My rubric from the Kindergarten assessments has since changed from my original plan...too much to grade in those, and unusable since the requirement was put in place that someone else must grade your student's post-assessments.)  I actually think that I might inocorporate this next year for my pre- and post-assessment instead of the worksheet to make it more of an artistic assessment!