Daily grammar practice is a tool that helps students practice and master grammar standards. Learn more about grammar spiral review in the classroom.

Looking for inspiration for teaching middle school reading skills? Read on to see how I teach the essential elements in a 6th-grade classroom.

Unsure of how to teach inference? These fun and engaging inferencing activities for middle school will excite your students!

Grab your copy of FREE ELA Curriculum Maps grades 6th-8th and save yourself a year's worth of planning! Digital maps with a planner, calendar, and more!

Using Pixar films in the English Language Arts classroom is an engaging way to review literary terms. Read this post to learn how you can use this!

7th and 8th grade ELA materials and resources for an entire school year covering more than 30 different skills and 40+ activities. This 140+ page product is designed to help your students master a variety of different skills throughout an entire school year. Below, I've highlighted the different skills, activities, and assessments included in the resource. This resource is editable and can be changed to fit your students' needs! NOTE: This resource is completely different than my 6th Grade ELA Resources It has a similar setup, but the activities and assessments are different.

All-in-one Language Arts Curriculum- 7Sisters Style! Teens love 7Sisters' no-busywork style. Now they can have their ELA curriculum.

This figurative language foldable is a great introduction.Visit us!!

Check out my set "Most Interesting 500" here! Visit my Waldorfschool/Steinerschool related pinboards here!

You don't have to spend hours finding theme activities for middle school. Check out my ideas and resources for teaching theme!

A collection of FREE grammar resources for teachers & homeschooling parents. These grammar activities come in printable and digital versions.

Daily grammar practice is a tool that helps students practice and master grammar standards. Learn more about grammar spiral review in the classroom.

Don't forget to review the five parts of the plot. All stories, no matter how basic, follow this outline.

Daily grammar practice is a tool that helps students practice and master grammar standards. Learn more about grammar spiral review in the classroom.

Free 7th & 8th grade worksheets, printable games, and activities to make learning math, literacy, history, and science engaging and FUN!

Today I am excited to welcome Kim from English Oh My as our guest blogger. She has some great ideas for teaching students to comprehend poetry in a manageable way. Enjoy! Happy April, and Happy National Poetry Month! Poetry is a timeless genre, and it is a part of most English Language curriculum. When I tell […]

Here are 15 engaging and creative TV episodes to use in ELA to teach genre, narrative techniques, characterization, and more. (Blog post)

Teaching middle school is like no other teaching assignment - like no other task on Earth for that matter. As a teacher, you need to be just the right mix of cool and strict - but most important, calm. You need to have a good relationship with your students overall based on mutual respect. But that's much easier said than done. Here's the thing about middle schoolers in particular: They want to look good in front of their peers. What their peers think of them is of utmost importance to them (whether they are in touch with that reality or not). Therefore, they will "save face" if they think you, the teacher, are criticizing them or making them look bad in any way. (Meanwhile, you meant no harm; you were simply calling them out on a behavior they clearly exhibited). The thing is you can't call them out in front of their peers. I mean you can, but you shouldn't. Whenever possible, call out their less-than-stellar behavior one-on-one, without their peers hearing it. This could mean going to their desk and whispering, or waiting for a good time to call them to your desk ever so calmly. It's easier to call them out from wherever you are, but if you want your class under control and to maintain respect, somehow arrange a private convo instead. The Goal is this, which is my #1 Rule for Teaching Middle School: No Power Struggles Have you ever noticed how some kids act so differently when their peers aren't around? Let's say a kid in your class before lunch was really pushing your buttons and disrupting class, but then he forgets his lunch in your room. He comes back to get it. You two talk. He's really nice and respectful! You have a pleasant conversation. You're wondering if this is the same person or perhaps a twin brother you weren't aware of. What is going on? IT'S BECAUSE HIS PEERS AREN'T THERE! I'm using a boy as an example, but the same thing applies to girls. Do NOT try to address a student's behavior in full view of his or her peers (a.k.a. the audience). You could get yourself into a full-blown power struggle before you know it. At first, by drawing attention to his or her behavior in front of his or her peers, you may inadvertently say something or suggest something that makes the student, from his or her perspective, look bad or uncool or different in some way. If you're not careful, you might find that the child you're disciplining escalates the situation, essentially trying to look good at any cost, even if that means receiving a negative consequence. For some kids, receiving a negative consequence is just more attention (and even negative attention is attention) and the whole situation will most likely make most of the students in the class think you're the bad guy and he or she is the good guy. You don't want that. There should not be a bad guy or a good guy, just you the teacher calmly in control. What you want to do is simply find a way to calmly speak to the student one-on-one. Keep your voice calm, logically explain everything, follow through on a fitting consequence OUT OF VIEW OF THEIR PEERS and most likely you'll avoid the full-blown power struggle. And, whenever possible, DO POINT OUT POSITIVE BEHAVIORS IN FRONT OF THEIR PEERS. Give them the good attention they want deep down inside. Say something like "Hey everyone, I really like how Alex is using his notes to write his essay. Wow, he's almost done." I heard you are supposed to give five praises for every one disciplinary comment. I say I heard that, because I need to work on that lol. GOOD LUCK! Here's another trick I learned. When you provide your students with high-interest learning resources they feel are relevant to them and interesting in some way, they will actually behave better. They will get sucked into whatever you are trying to get them read, write, or do and forget about misbehaving. So, that's why I created these high-interest informational texts and tasks. I went out of my way to make the articles super interesting to middle schoolers by writing about things that interest them. And, guess what? It worked. I keep hearing from teachers how kids get so into these passages. They actually want to answer the questions. They even want to discuss the articles as a group. And teachers keep reporting how much time and hassle I have saved them. I did that by aligning every text and task to a specific Reading Informational Text Standard and did that 10 times to cover all 10 of them individually. Now teachers don't have to go searching for the right articles that bring out the right skills. Try both volumes and use them all year long! Your students are actually going to behave better because they won't be bored! I even made them in both PDF and interactive Google Slides in case you want the easy distance learning option! And don't forget to pin this so you can read it again or share it with a friend. Best wishes to you this year! You got this!

This blog post is a kind of spin off of my Narrative Writing blog post that talks all about writing narratives in middle school English Language Arts. This post is more in-depth about how I do Writing Conferences and peer-editing in my 7th and 8th grade English Language Arts classroom. Writing Conferences are probably the thing ... Read more

Today I am excited to welcome Kim from English Oh My as our guest blogger. She has some great ideas for teaching students to comprehend poetry in a manageable way. Enjoy! Happy April, and Happy National Poetry Month! Poetry is a timeless genre, and it is a part of most English Language curriculum. When I tell […]

Grab your copy of FREE ELA Curriculum Maps grades 6th-8th and save yourself a year's worth of planning! Digital maps with a planner, calendar, and more!

If you’d rather watch paint dry than come up with figurative language examples and activities, give your brain a break because this post will leave you

Ever wondered what your child should know before 9th grade? I found this little freebie poster from Mrs.

These are my favorite books to read with middle schoolers. My students and tend to love them because of the themes and messages.

Researching language arts options for your homeschool? Here's why Learning Language Arts Through Literature is my top language arts choice.

I giggled to myself as I created the title to this blog post! If you are new to my blog, I'll have you know that this is the THIRD time I've written an "ELA in

Captivating 8th Grade English Worksheets with Additional 5th Grade from 9th grade english worksheets , image source: homeshealth.info

9th and 10th grade ELA materials and resources for an entire school year covering more than 30 different skills and 40+ activities. This 140+ page product is designed to help your students master a variety of different skills throughout an entire school year. Below, I've highlighted the different skills, activities, and assessments included in the resource. This resource is editable and can be changed to fit your students' needs! NOTE: This resource is completely different than my 6th Grade ELA Resources and 7th and 8th Grade ELA Resources It has a similar setup, but the activities and assessments are different.

A collection of FREE grammar resources for teachers & homeschooling parents. These grammar activities come in printable and digital versions.

Read about eleven different ways to meaningfully incorporate art in ELA class. Keep the focus on students' learning, not their artistic abilities.

This product will help you display the Common Core standards in your 8th grade Language Arts classroom!! This file features the Common Core Standards for Language Arts. The standards for each strand of Language Arts are on a different color background. There are 2 posters on each page. Thanks for ...

This 8th Grade Poetry Unit contains 8 engaging lessons for middle school classrooms. This unit helps students analyze a variety of poetry forms.

Today I am excited to welcome Kim from English Oh My as our guest blogger. She has some great ideas for teaching students to comprehend poetry in a manageable way. Enjoy! Happy April, and Happy National Poetry Month! Poetry is a timeless genre, and it is a part of most English Language curriculum. When I tell […]

Daily grammar practice is a tool that helps students practice and master grammar standards. Learn more about grammar spiral review in the classroom.