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

This single classroom procedure has made a HUGE difference in my experience teaching middle school. My first year teaching I didn't do this and I knew that something needed to change. I decided to put into a place a daily bellringer for every one of my classes. I am a Family Consumer Sciences teacher so I teacher 4 different classes!You can call it whatever you want to call it but I call it a bell ringer because my students are expected to be doing it as soon as the bell rings to start class.Her

Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!

Full year lesson plans provide huge time savings to busy teachers. It is important to have lesson structures and assignments in your classroom that can be used all year.

Looking for games to play with a classroom? This list of English games in the classroom is exactly what you need to engage students!

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!

Much like students who spend more hours on the hook of an essay than they do the bulk of an essay, I often found myself with a case of English teacher writing block when it came to planning my first day of school activities. Though I have ten years (x two semesters each) of ... Read More about First Day of School Activities for High School and Middle School English

Ok, I get these Q’s frequently from teachers who reach out to me regarding setting up and running stations or centers (same thing, basically) in their middle school English / Language Arts / Reading / Writing classes: How do I make stations work so I can . . . >> teach my students while also

Public Speaking Games: 7 outrageously good fun-filled speech activities to build confidence and skills. Good for middle school upwards.

Some newcomers arrive with no English at all and need to focus on basic classroom English first. This pack will help.

Movement in the classroom is beneficial for many reasons. First and foremost, getting up to move in the classroom might help anxious students relieve stress.

Classroom preparation is the key to success!

Since I don't have a vocabulary book or program that I HAVE to follow at my school, I used to always worry if I was doing enough vocabulary instruction. Even when I was theoretically following best practices or authentically investigating words as they came up in texts, I was concerned about if I was really helping my students become better readers. After a lot of trial and error, I'm now proud of what we do for middle school vocabulary, which falls into four main areas: Specific Words for Texts and Units Word of the Week Program (see this post) Vocabulary.com use for differentiation (see bottom of post) Greek & Latin roots instruction (see this blog post for details) This mix of interaction, instruction, differentiation, and assessment is working for my students better than ever before (and is showing up in their reading scores). Today, I'm going to share the details of my Word of the Day/Week setup (also known as the Word Nerd Challenge), which is essentially doing deeper instruction of 40 words (10 words per quarter). Here's How it Works: Because I teach middle school, I need the materials to be age-appropriate and easy to read, so I've made my Word of the Week resources minimalist and without clutter -- print-and-go materials with no need to add extra, unnecessary information. I want my students to learn the vocabulary terms with the definitions, synonyms and antonyms, Greek or Latin roots, and so on. Here are the steps for how I carry out the Word of the Week program in my class: Pre-test: Check initial understanding of the 40 words Bell-ringer: Use the PowerPoint visual display (or just stick the guided notes packet under your document camera) while students record information into their guided notes journal Guided notes: Fill-in-the-blank graphic organizer customized for each word Flashcards: Pre-made Quizlet sets (for each 10-word set AND overall) Quizzes: Students take a quiz every 10 words Bulletin board: Display the cumulative list of words learned this year Post-test: Assess growth over time I sometimes throw in some additional things, like these: Skills test: An optional assessment with 10 NEW words to practice the skills taught through the guided notes journal Certificates: Celebrate student victory from the post-test results Journal cover and extras for the guided notes, like student directions, growth chart, etc. Personally, the vocabulary terms that I use in my classroom are ACT/SAT level words, even though I teach middle school. This prepares them for high school and for those tests that they'll have to take eventually to help them gain admission to colleges and universities. Another benefit of using words at this level is that they commonly appears in real-world contexts, like the news! If you'd like a ready-made vocabulary program that will take a task off your plate, then you can purchase my Word of the Week Program here (Volume 1) and here (Volume 2) in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. I've taken all of the work out of it for you and created a ready-to-use but editable vocabulary program! How I use Vocabulary.com This is a paid program that my school purchased after I requested it. Here's how we used it last year (our first year of the program): Every student had an account, and I set them up into their class periods. Every student had a goal to "master" 10 words per quarter, at minimum. For some students, this was challenging (especially for those who struggle with reading or vocabulary and took a long time to get the several-questions-right-in-a-row needed to "master" a word). However, many students exceeded this goal - by the hundreds. At the end of the quarter, students logged their statistics as well as writing down a short sample of words they mastered and words they're currently working on. (This gave me, and their parents, a view of the difficulty level of the words that the program had given them.) I'm happy to say that the vocabulary.com program is their favorite online program (more than, say, IXL or CommonLit), and students were authentically choosing to play it in their downtime. (This review of vocabulary.com is not an ad and is my personal opinion.) What are some of your favorite methods for teaching vocabulary? Let me know in the comments!

So… you’re a first-time middle school ELA teacher. Welcome to the madness, I guess! I’m kidding, but in all honesty, middle school isn’t quite like high school or elementary school. Middle school is its own unique level that you need to be prepared for as you get ready to run your classroom. But before we

Engaging and Relevant 2 Peas and a Dog helps teachers like you save valuable time and energy by creating ready-to-use engaging middle school lessons that your students will love. LEARN MORE Middle School Book Lists

Do your students groan when you bring up the dreaded subject of grammar? Unfortunately, grammar instruction tends to be dry—but not if you have fun grammar exercises to engage your students! Middle schoolers can be a hard group to teach, but making grammar exercises fun keeps them focused on the task at hand. Fun Grammar

Tone might be one of the hardest concepts to explain to students. Some understand tone immediately. These are not the students to worry about. Our job as

Help bring poetry to life for our older students!

Showing the occassional YouTube video can be a great way to supplement student learning and increase student engagement. Check out these titles for ELA.

This past school year was a great one. With every school year that passes, I like to take a moment and reflect on activities that were successful in the

Our fun, free printable English worksheets help to build spelling and vocabulary skills in your students! This page features words containing the letters ICE.

What my daily ELA class period schedule looks like in middle school ELA and how it works alongside my scope and sequences.

It can be a challenge to plan engaging lessons for your ELA class. Check out how to make English class fun with these 10 tips.

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.

My favorite teaching units are my research and rhetorical analysis unit. I love teaching rhetorical analysis and assigning students a rhetorical analysis PAPA square. Read on to learn more about the rhetorical analysis PAPA square activity and to sign up to receive your own free copy! I love providing my students with the knowledge and resources they need to critically read and analyze text, know why it is powerful, and understand how the author crafted it. I feel that truly understanding the language and the text, primarily through rhetorical analysis, is something that makes all of my students critical thinkers.

One of my favorite ways to assess my students' essay-writing skills without actually assigning a traditional essay is with the graphic essay. A graphic essay

For any teacher or parent that is looking, here is my list of best books for middle school readers. Each of these books has been read or recommended by my students or I during the course of our time together:

Hooray for 100 writing prompts for middle school students. You can also use these writing prompts for middle school worksheets and more. Yes, take a look now!

In the public education setting, timed-writes are a required part of many standardized tests. Rather than try to cloak that reality, embrace it! One great way

10 inexpensive rewards to use in your middle school class.

With a new school year upon us, here is a look at 10 must-use secondary ELA teaching units, lessons, and activities for your classroom. These units are

The start of a new school year or new semester is the perfect time to establish new classroom learning routines! Whether it be a bell-ringer routine for the

Middle school short stories are one of my favourite things to teach. I use them to teach the elements of the novel, figurative language and critical thinking skills. In this blog post, I list and summarize my top 14 short stories for middle school that I use in my classroom.

Middle school vocabulary is imperative for a student's future success. Make sure they have the tools to succeed by browsing this list of vocabulary words.

Ten years ago, podcasts weren’t nearly as popular as they are today. Now, they’re a huge asset to our personal and professional lives—including in the classroom. That’s why today I’m walking you through how to use podcasts in Middle School ELA classrooms. If you’re not a big podcast listener, you might be wondering how on

One of the most effective ways to improve test scores, writing, and reading comprehension is to improve vocabulary! Why have students copy down definitions or make old-school flash cards when they can learn new words with some fun games? Here are 5 vocabulary games for middle school students you can try in your homeschool! Click the link below to read more!

An essential, relevent, and engaging writing assignment for middle and high school students. Teach them the art of email etiquette!

After reading thousands of essays, quick writes, and classroom assignments throughout my teaching career, I’ve noticed a trend in student writing: students

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Looking for Wordle classroom ideas? Incorporate Wordle into your classroom with this activities, ideas, and templates.

What is the purpose of literature circles? How do you structure a literature circle? How long should Literature Circles last? What is the teacher's role in

With a new school year upon us, it’s time to re-energize your teaching practices with some new routines and resources. Here are ten teaching resources and