Glow Day lights up learning excitement

Who said that getting ready for state testing had to be boring?

As children across the state have been preparing for the NYS ELA assessments that will take place this week, the students in Mrs. Amy Bartholomew’s 6th grade English Language Arts classes have been doing the same . . . sort of.

Students spent all last week in her class reading incredibly challenging text passages and then analyzing and answering multiple choice questions. But since she was asking for so much effort and focus from them, Mrs. Bartholomew decided to reward her students and their hard work by making the experience as fun as possible.

They call these days “Glow Day,” and students spend their ELA class in complete darkness with blacklights, glowsticks, glow in the dark balloons, and highlighters to light their way as they work. When students completed test questions accurately, they were allowed to play glow-in-the-dark bowling, ring toss, tic-tac-toe, and basketball as a reward.

It is one of the most fun weeks in 6th grade ELA and students were actually THANKING her for their week of test prep! Mrs. Bartholomew shared that she is incredibly proud of her 6th graders and all of the hard work they’ve put in this past week, as well as throughout this entire school year.