Ms. Moran's Kindergarten: Exit Tickets In Kindergarten

Exit tickets or quick checks are my absolutely FAVORITE way to assess my students even in a kindergarten classroom! They are so quick and simple to use and I am able to gain so much information from them to guide my teaching!

Kindergarten Exit Tickets are a simple formative assessment o check for understanding in your classroom. They can be used at the end of a lesson or before to ensure the majority of students are ready to move on.

Kindergarten Exit Tickets are a simple way to check for understanding in your classroom. They can be used at the end of a lesson or before to ensure the majority of students are ready to move on.

We use them frequently so my students are very familiar with the routine. In our classroom we call them our "secret learning tickets." My students know that they are used to help us learn so it is important that they keep their answers to themselves.

Currently we are working on subtraction so I wanted to share how we use them in my classroom. Each student receives the question. I know in the older grades, the students can copy the question from a board but since I teach kindergarten, I have found that it is easier just to have my questions prepped for the students. I give each student their "secret learning ticket."
The students quickly answer the question and then flip their paper over and write their name on the back. I always have them write their name on the back because I do share their answers and I don't want to embarrass any of the students. Once all of the students have answered the question, I quickly collect the exit tickets. Depending on time, we may go through them as a group and sort by the correct and the incorrect answer or I may quickly do this on my own.

I then have a pile of correct answers

and incorrect answers

I have created an environment where it is okay to make mistakes and the students have their names on the back so I use these tickets as a quick teaching opportunity.
I learned of this strategy from a gifted course that I had taken years ago where we watched this video (PS Amazing teacher!!)

She is a middle school teacher but I loved this strategy so much that I had to bring it to kindergarten! I search through the incorrect answer to find "my favorite no".... my favorite wrong answer that I can use to guide the students learning. I absolutely love this strategy. I look for an answer that the students did do something right but need a little more to guide their learning. For this subtraction lesson, "my favorite no" that I shared with students was this particular exit ticket. The student had showed the subtraction problem but did not answer the question.

I share this ticket with my class under our document camera so as a group we analyze the problem together. The students find something that the student did right and what they can do better next time to help them get the right answer. I lead the discussion but the ideas come from my students. For this lesson the students shared how we like how the student put the cross out mark on the objects to show that we are taking away but next time, we would like them to count how many are left.

At times, you may notice that there are too many student who just didn't "get it," then you know that to reteach the lesson. If the majority of students understand the concept I am able to move on with my teaching and just pull small groups for more support.

I have found this quick and simple formative assessment to be so beneficial to me as a teacher and I know it is helpful to my students as well.

You can click on the image below to check out my kindergarten addition and subtraction exit tickets in my TPT store that are easy to print and use as a quick formative assessment in your kindergarten classroom. It includes a variety of skill levels focusing on both addition and subtraction with and without pictures.