The New Hampshire 11th-graders sung lyrics such as "KKK, KKK, let's kill all the blacks" after being assigned to create a jingle based on Reconstruction.
The IMPORTANT stuff.
There are so many great options for middle and high school homeschool electives for teens that it can be hard to narrow down the choices.
Figuring out who you want to be before you mess it all up completely.
When I was struggling through high school my mom told me these five things repeatedly, and now in college I finally get them.
Beat the overwhelm of teaching an absolute beginner with this downloadable checklist
Some say it's the best four years of your life!
On our way to high school recently, I asked my friend, “Do you consider yourself a feminist?” After a slight hesitation, she responded, “Well, I support women’s rights and all, […]
Calling all educators! Dive into a treasure trove of hilarious teacher memes that perfectly encapsulate the ups and downs of teaching life.
Do you know your Sharpays from your Tiaras?
It's time to journey to high school!
25-page study guide/outline for 8th grade/High school algebra Covers most high school Algebra I curriculums, including the New York Regents curriculum Hand-written, original illustrations Digital PDF file Following topics covered: Basics of Algebra Prime and composite numbers Ratios and proportions Inequalities Slope Linear equations Systems of equations Exponents Square root Factoring Functions Polynomials Parabolas Quadratic equations Exponential growth and decay Sequences and series Absolute value Piecewise functions Irrational numbers Probability - permutation, combination Statistics - mean, median, mode, box and whisker plot, stem and leaf plot Note: This product was revised and improved in March 2024. If you purchased before March 19, 2024, I am happy to offer you a free copy of the revised version.
I am SO glad the real world has calculators.
Is it lunch yet?
The ticket system has been a game-changing classroom management strategy for my own high school science classroom.
A guest post from Chloe Koffas on how we change time and how we piece together the puzzles of our lives in other peoples' pictures.
City life, beach life, or gossip life?
Six months after I myself graduated college, I wrote a post giving my advice to new grads. I essentially said 'the thing you do right after you graduate is not as important to Your Future as you think it is'. Not bad, but I've had a few years now to contemplate what advice I would share with those graduating high school and college in the near future: A four year degree is not always the answer When I was 18, I was under the impression that a four year degree was my only option. But degrees from four year universities are not
Are you more Veronica Sawyer or Regina George?
Schools across the country face security problems every day just like major business complexes do. Still, school shootings persist and the media accentuates the violence that is happening across the country with a tale of “this can happen to your community” type message.
These friends got together to take the same photo every five years for the past 30 years. Their photos have gone viral and a lot of questions have been asked about their photos. Here’s their story.
You can finally live out your 14-year-old dream.
We really are all in this together.
Hollywood has pushed out some impressive historical dramas. Here are some great quality historical movies for junior high and high school, under R.
Is your alma mater the most beautiful high school in your state?
Were you the Queen of the Cafeteria?
Why I don't review the syllabus on the first day of class in high school and what I do instead. Fun first day of school activities and icebreakers!
Happy August! We got home from our six day road trip last night, and now it’s time for me to buckle down and start thinking about BACK TO SCHOOL. Our first teacher work day is August 17th, so I’m less than two weeks away now… In honor of that, I thought I’d bring back “Teaching Tuesday”...Read More »
In this lesson plan, students will practice satire by creating puns with the name of Edgar Allan Poe. They will take a Meme form and write their Poe puns on the form to put on display in the classroom for our satire unit. Students in middle school and high school will love this engaging lesson pla
15 exit ticket ideas for any subject or grade level!
19 free financial literacy games for high school students to add engagement and FUN to teaching personal finance. Financial literacy & budget simulations, too.
Want to introduce a money project to your students? Check out these personal finance project examples for middle and high school. Every so often, I find a fun and interesting personal finance project example that
Everyone wants to go back to high school, right?
Do it for the aesthetic.
Are you dreading school? Need to share a few memes with your friends to blow off some steam? Share these hilarious funny student memes now!
Some senior pranks go down in history.
"Remember how Troy Bolton was accepted to Juilliard."
By Presto Plans I first realized the power of bell ringers years ago, thanks to a particularly unruly class that would bounce off my walls after lunch. After consistently wasting the first ten minutes of class getting students seated, settled, and ready to learn, I decided to give bell-ringers a try. They were immediately a classroom game-changer. Bell-ringers—sometimes referred to as “warm ups” or “do nows”— are questions, tasks, or other warm up activities that students complete at the beginning of class (or when the bell rings, as the name suggests.) They jump start student learning, calm classroom chaos, reduce uncertainty, and make transitions smoother, all the while allowing the teacher to maximize their time and maintain their sanity. I’m here to share the benefits of using a bell-ringer routine in your classroom, tips and strategies to implement them effectively, and answers to your most commonly asked questions. I'm also sharing free bell-ringers that will last you a couple months! 1) Extra time at the beginning of class Bell-ringers give teachers the gift of time. In those 5-10 minutes, you can take attendance, get papers ready and/or passed out, prepare tech, catch up with students who have been absent, or even prepare for your next period. 2) Improved classroom routine and classroom management As students transition from class to class, they tend to get amped up from hallway antics. Bell-ringers improve the transition back into the academic setting and establish a consistent routine and minimize classroom management issues. There is a lot of uncertainty in a teenager’s world, and though they may not admit it, students crave predictability and routine. After the routine is established, you’ll even find that students will get started on the bell-ringer BEFORE the bell even rings, as they know exactly what is expected of them. 3) A chance to practice ELA skills and assess and review standards By using bell-ringers at the start of class, you are taking advantage of an extra opportunity to practice the ELA skills and meet standards you have been diligently working on throughout the year. Bell-ringers are perfect for putting what you’ve taught to the test in a creative, fun, low-pressure way. Given that they aren’t heavily graded on the bell-ringers (or not at all), the pressure often associated with other tasks is alleviated. 1. Mix up your bell-ringer each day If you are using the same bell-ringers every single day, students will likely grow tired of them. I like to have themed days for each of the bell-ringers that will address a specific skill. Below are some of the types of bell-ringers you might consider using: Improve word choice Locate figurative language Have a short discussion with a partner Watch a short video clip and write a personal response to a prompt Infer the meaning of new words in context Correct grammar errors Have a mini-debate with a partner Use a picture to spark narrative writing I liked to use each of my year-long volumes of bell-ringers to have different activities for each day. You can try four free weeks by clicking on the image below to see if they might work for you. 2. Give students a fun challenge Another way to mix up your bell-ringers is to set a challenge at the start of the week and have students progressively work towards a solution on Friday. My favorite way to do this is with escape room bell-ringer challenges. When you use an escape room bell-ringer, students are given a back story on Monday where they find themselves in a situation (dungeon, alien planet, military bunker, scientist study etc.). They work with their group for the first 5-10 minutes of class to progressively move through different floors, rooms, chambers, and cells each day to solve ELA related puzzles. Their goal? To successfully escape by the end of the week. Want to try a bell-ringer challenge with your students? Grab a free figurative language bell-ringer activity below as a fun way to start one of your classes. 2. Model a Good Response Spend the first days explaining the daily bell-ringer activity for that day and even show them what a strong response looks like for each different bell-ringer activity you do. Taking this time at the beginning will get you better responses from the students as the year goes on. 3. Set specific expectations and procedures From day 1, you’ll want to demonstrate exactly how things are going to play out. Start by literally walking them through the process of entering the classroom and retrieving their bell-ringer booklets or binder. Once they are completed their work, you might think of getting them to hold onto their booklets and putting them back at the end. I would recommend not doing this as typically someone will accidentally take it home or the booklets will get destroyed since they all are eager to leave and are throwing the booklets on the shelf (real life teaching, right?) That’s why I would suggest you establish a system for collecting the bell-ringer booklets after they are done, and go through it with them a few times to practice. You wouldn’t think something as simple as collecting the booklets would be an issue, but having a plan makes things run so much more smoothly. If you use a standard classroom set up (desks in a row or pairs): Have each row turn around to collect the booklets from the row behind them and move them all forward until they are in the front row. Select one student to collect them all from the front row and put them back in the proper spot. If your desks are set up in groups: Have one member from each group be responsible for collecting the booklets, and have all groups pass them over to the group closest to where to store them. Have one person put them all back. On the first day, I practice this 2-3 times and set a timer to see how fast they can do it (I tell them they are in competition with the other classes). This makes it fun, but it also establishes a routine, and set a precedent to strive for throughout the year and it makes collecting the booklets quick and efficient. 1. Should I grade bell-ringers? Won't that make more work for me? Listen, the LAST thing I want to do is add more paper to an English teachers' pile! Bell-ringers are a type of formative assessment that do not need to be graded. They are a quick way for students to practice and develop ELA skills. I did add a quick check rubric on the bottom of some of my student handouts because I personally used this to keep students accountable and motivated to complete the work to the best of their ability. I would tell them that one week out of the month would be graded, but they wouldn't know which week (insert evil laughter 😉). This lessened my grading, but I also liked peeking at them monthly to see who was completing the work well and where I needed to focus my instruction. 2. How long should you spend on bell-ringers? For me, bell-ringers would typically take an about 5-10 minutes to complete. The time will vary depending on what type of bell-ringer you are completing. Some people like a quick 5 minute bell-ringer, others like to dive in a little deeper and spend more time as it pertains to their lesson. If students are improving the word choice in a passage or practicing labelling figurative language, it may only take a quick 5 minutes. However, if they are discussing an ethical prompt or watching a video clip and writing a response, it may take closer to 10. It's important to remember though that sometimes your students will be totally engaged in a bell-ringer, and you may end up spending more time than you thought on it. This is not wasted time! The content still relates to your curriculum and helps students hone their writing, reading, speaking, and listening skills. Sometimes an unplanned part of a lesson is where the best learning happens. 3. How do you manage all the paper? Here is my fool-proof system. A word of caution: don't let them take their bell-ringer binder home! It's an absolute nightmare waiting to happen 😂. Have each student purchase a small 1 inch binder to hold all of the bell-ringer response sheets (or use a three-clasp folder). Have students write their name in big bold letters on the spine (or the front if it is a folder). Having a variety of colors of binders/folders is better so they can find theirs more easily. Put a bookcase somewhere near the door of your room. Assign each class an area of the bookcase. Tell students they will grab the binder when they enter, and it will go back on that shelf when the bell-ringer is done.! This makes it easy to find their binder the next day. 4. Will using bell-ringers help my classroom management? Yes, routines are your friend! I learned fairly quickly in my teaching career that expected procedures are necessary for survival when it comes to classroom management. Bell-ringers set the tone in the first few minutes of class and help students transition back into work mode after a break period. I was literally wasting the first 5-10 minutes of class quieting my students down and preparing to get started. After starting a bell-ringer routine, they immediately started working when they entered! 5. Should I do bell-ringers every day or just on some days? Personally, I think it is better to bell-ringers every day and stick to the routine. When you are always skipping the bell-ringer or only doing them here and there, students lose that consistency, and you won't see the classroom management benefits. You can certainly make it work if you don't want to do it every day, but if you do this, I might suggest writing on the board or projecting a slide to say if there is a bell-ringer that day. This way you don't have to constantly answer the question, "Is there a bell-ringer today?" Still have questions about using bell-ringers successfully in the classroom? Don't hesitate to reach out! I'd love to hear from you. Need more bell-ringer ideas? The bloggers of the coffee shop have you covered! Growth Mindset Bell Ringers from The Daring English Teacher Daily Career Writing Prompts from The Classroom Sparrow Independent Reading Prompts from Room 213 Bell-Ringer Journal Prompts from Tracee Orman Collaborative Bell-Ringers from Nouvelle ELA
British Literature - One Year of High School Reading and Thinking. No busywork - British Literature High School Study Guides that teens like!
Use this vetted list to help teach Early American History with movies to your high school homeschoolers: Colonial Times, Revolutionary War, Early Frontier Life, and Westward Expansion
Trendy High School Classroom Decor, Funny Math Poster, Gen Z Humor, Science Classroom Sign, Middle School English Teacher Gift, Class Rules Maybe this way they'll actually understand you?! This 8x10 inch printable has black lettering and a yellow and black smiley face. Exact colors will slightly vary based on your monitor's settings. THIS IS A DIGITAL PRINT. NO PHYSICAL ITEM WILL BE SHIPPED TO YOU. What you'll receive is a high resolution (300 dpi) jpeg that you can download for personal use. Please read more below! *********HOW TO GET THIS PRINT ON YOUR CLASSROOM'S SWEET WALLS 1. Add this listing to your cart 2. Click over to the checkout page and submit payment 3. Once payment is processed through Etsy (usually only a minute or two!), click over to the Purchases tab on the Etsy site 4. Find this print at the top of your purchased list and hit "Download Files" 5. Save the jpeg to your computer and print it out at home. Or put the file on a flash drive and take it to your trusted local print shop 6. Hang this beauty up in your space and enjoy it forever! *This print is 8x10 inches. Depending on the frame you choose, you may need to do some trimming. *This print is intended for personal use only. No reselling or transferring to friends or family. Please see my shop policies for more info. * This is an instant digital download. No physical item will be mailed to you. * If you would like a different size, please message me on Etsy before purchasing! ************ MinMac Wall Art Policies ************ By purchasing this listing, you are accepting these terms: this print is for personal use only. No reselling or transferring please. All designs are copyright MinMac. Once again, no physical item is mailed to you. This is an instant download. No refunds or returns.
"Tumblr is really just a big blue High School Musical fansite and everybody knows it."
An English teacher’s life is packed, and for the most part on top of that, we are doing more than just teaching English. For me, I’m the yearbook adviser, the graduation coordinator, senior class sponsor, member of the leadership committee, etc. I’m sure your situation is similar. So, when I can cut down on what […]
Let's dive into some new options to teach vocabulary, for those who have the time and energy to pursue them. In this post and podcast, I'm sharing ten ideas for making the study of vocabulary something students might even look forward to.