Yesterday was April Fool’s Day so I decided to play a prank on my class.

I designed a fake test. Here it is…

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Basic Skills Test
Name:__________
Date:__________

– Read the instructions carefully before beginning this test.
– Read through all the questions before you start.

1) Write your name in the correct place in the top corner.

2) Write the date under your name.

3) Draw a star in the top left corner of this page.

4) How many light fixtures are hanging in your classroom? __________

5) Yell out, “I’m on question 5”

6) Now you can begin the test.

7) Circle the group of words that are in alphabetical order

a) back, break, bill
b) cup, cap, corn
c) drink, dinosaur, day

8) Which word has a long A?

a) faster b) easy c) among d) was e) can

9) Fix all the errors in the sentence by writing it again below.

a) Mrs. Jones drove us to school today. _______________________________________________

b) The rain almost ruined our picnic.
_______________________________________________

10) Fill in these sentences using words from this word box

(were eating is run cheese threw six stop)

a) She _______ glad to help
b) Exactly what were you _______ on doing?
c) If you ______ happy and you know it, clap your hands.
d) He doesn’t always _____ before he speaks.
e) The crow _____ really high.
f) What flavour of ice cream do you ________?
g) Put on your jacket before you _______.

11) Rip up the test. You don’t have to do this. April Fools!

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If the students had read through all the questions first, like the instructions said, they would have ripped up their tests in minutes. But that didn’t happen.

I sat at the back of the classroom and watched them. The students were quietly working away at it until some of them got to question 5. They yelled out, “I’m on question 5,” just like they were instructed to. Other students that weren’t there started yelling out other things too. Like, “I’m only on question three,” Or “So what?”

It was hard for me not to break out laughing at the back of the classroom. I was watching them struggle with the test and it was almost painful. Almost.

Anyway, it took sixteen minutes before one of the students read question 11. She broke into a great big smile, turned to look at me, and said, “Ever sad.”

I told her to, “Do it!” She the ripped up the test.

Everyone then knew what was up and started ripping up the papers after that. I couldn’t believe that it took my class sixteen minutes to figure this out.

I thought they’d be mad at me, but they all loved the joke. They even wanted an extra copy of it to go show their parents. It was a great prank.

Surprisingly, no one pranked me at school yesterday. I thought for sure my class would try to pull something. I wanted to get them first. And I did. It was great.