The number one question I see on forums is, what books should I read with my middle school students? There are so many great choices out there because young adult literature is rocking. To help you get started, here are 12 of my favorite books that I have read with my students throughout the years.
Read MoreResearch proves that when you have intentional and explicit vocabulary instruction, reading ability and comprehension increases. So the question is, how do you make your vocabulary instruction intentional and explicit? This post explains the 5 steps I use each week to teach vocabulary to my middle school students.
Read MoreMaybe you're new to the secondary world, or maybe you just need a reset. Whatever the situation, just know this is exactly what you need to almost eliminate discipline problems and get your classroom running smoothly. Here are 5 routines that will get you going. All routines are tried, tested, and work with are fun middle schoolers.
Read MoreTeaching inference in middle school can be somewhat of a challenge. Am I right? I hear you! I know how hard it is to teach and review inference with your students. The struggle is totally real! Here are the 6 step by step activities I use in my own classroom to help students develop and build their inference skills. Click to learn more!
Read MoreLook at you! You’re amazing just for searching for ideas to help your students. This post is a growing resource for teachers who want to make remote learning meaningful for their middle school students. Click through to find standards based, quality, and engaging digital lessons for your middle school ELA classroom.
Read MoreFigurative language is one of my favorite things to teach! Since it is found everywhere, it is one of the first standards we focus on in class. I thank if we can start off the year with a deep understanding of this concept, I can refer back to it again and again as we go through the year. Here are the 5 easy to implement lessons that I use to help students dig deep into their understanding of figurative language.
Read MoreAfter several years of playing around with TpT, I decided to get serious about making extra money with this amazing website. These are the 5 easy steps I took to increase my profit with Teachers pay Teachers. Click through to learn how you can turn a profit, too and for a free checklist to get you started!
Read MoreCollaboration is great, isn’t it?! It brings students together and not only enhances their learning, it builds those critical social skills students are in desperate need of. Here are my 5 favorite strategies I use in my middle school classroom to encourage collaboration. They are step by step, easy to implement, and low prep (because that’s how this teacher rolls!) Click to learn about the strategies and start using them today. Yay!
Read MoreThis is how I took bellringer from a typical routine and amped them up in order to build relationships and writing stamina throughout the school. Click to read exactly how to implement in your classroom. There is also freebie just for you!
Read MoreYou are a great teacher (that's why you're checking out products related to building relationships) and you know how important it is to spend time getting to know WHO your students are before you jump head first into content.
This post will give you some ideas you can use to start building relationships the very first week. Click to read more and start planning!
Read MoreThis novel review is a great way to get students thinking about the connections between characters, events, and personalities. The idea of using shapes and randomly selecting characters makes the students think, talk, and analyze the novel in order to come up with their connections. I love hearing the conversations about the characters and events in the novel as I walked around. They even had insights I never would have thought of! Click through to read how to use this easy, almost no prep review in your classroom today!
Read MoreAfter years and years of holding seminars in my middle school ELA classroom, I have come up 6 tips you can implement to help you and your students get the most out of a seminar session! I believe these tips help my seminars run effectively in ALL of my classes (yes, even that class that can’t handle hardly anything) Click to see if there are any tips you can add to what you’re already doing!
Read MoreMotivating those fun middle schoolers can be tricky, right? Here are three incentives classroom tested incentives that you can implement right away to help manage your middle school classroom and make it fun! Seriously.
Read MoreThis is your one stop spot for how to teach Chasing Lincoln’s Killer to your students! I have complied everything I have learned from the years of teaching with this novel, so you can save time and have access what works! This post details exactly how I approach each chapter and specifically outlines the strategies I use to engage students and encourage analytical thinking.
Read MoreIn order to teacher one of the most engaging novels I do all year, I have to front load and build tons of back ground knowledge. What better way than to use the countless primary sources from the assassination. This is the step by step guide to how I pump up their prior knowledge with primary sources.
Read MoreUp until this point, a lot of our students have just focused on plot, characters, POV, setting, etc. as independent concepts. This is how I got my students to go beyond thinking about story elements in isolation, and to start looking at how they work together and interact.
Read MoreThis one skill I have taught my students is something that is not only super useful for them right now, but it something that can be applied to all subjects throughout their academic career. This is WHAT I teach them and HOW I implement it on a consistent and daily basis!
Read MoreWow. Some days are just a struggle in the middle school ELA classroom. Trying to get 12-14 year olds to focus on reading for an extended amount of time takes some work and energy. After watching my students float off into la la land after 15 minutes of reading, I knew I had to come up with a way to keep them engaged during extended readings…
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