Team-building activities in the middle school classroom are a great way to build relationships at the beginning of the school year!

Read on to get some great ideas for project-based learning in your middle school classroom!

Middle school novel study favorites - top novel study picks for grade 5-9 to engage and encourage young readers.

Differentiation and scaffolding can help students better understand and learn. Here are teaching ideas and tips to use in class.

This is a very detailed lesson plan that includes: 1) pre-assessment mitosis questions 2) A worksheet students can complete by following an easy to use website. 3) SCRIPTED Mini-lecture 4) Worksheet/handout students can use to draw in phases of mitosis and fill in the blank 4) Post assessment 5) Cut and Paste activity. An ANSWER key is included for you. It is highly interactive and covers all the necessary components of mitosis! Enjoy :) Previous Lesson on DNA Structure, Replication & Cell Cycle: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/DNA-Structure-Replication-Cell-Cycle-LESSON-PLAN-3176986 Next Lesson on Meiosis: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/High-School-Meiosis-LESSON-PLAN-and-QUIZ-3177042 Karyotyping Lab Activity: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/High-School-Biology-Karyotyping-Lab-Activity-3177407 Genetics Review and Unit Test: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/High-School-Biology-GENETICS-Review-Unit-Test-3177416 Lessons for the Entire Unit: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/High-School-Biology-Genetics-UNIT-Lessons-3177435

What if your next unit were self-grading and had students clamoring to work ahead? Yep, you read that right. Your next unit, whether it's skills or facts, could be presented to students in a visible trail of learning that compels them to keep moving forward. In fact, in our classroom, we're doing a game board system for GRAMMAR, and students are doing above the minimum to compete, succeed, and be creative. I've been slowly improving this system for five years in my classroom, and it has manifested into a really cool grammar program for my seventh and eighth graders. Now, I'm finally ready to share it with you. What madness is this? As any quick Google or Edutopia search will tell you, game-based learning is hot right now. A lot of people are looking at different styles of gaming to think about how we can hack the brain's motivation, reward, and learning cycles to help our students make engaged progress. My take on gaming is a basic one, at least for now, but it works. The game board I created is basically the full cycle of learning in disguise: introduce new information, practice, formative assessment, respond to assessment, and repeat... until a final summative assessment happens at the end of the unit or academic term. ...But when presented in the game board, suddenly all this learning isn't just a pile of work anymore - it's a compelling trail that makes students say things like "Challenge accepted!" Example 1: Grammar When I teach The Grammar House Cup, students follow a learning sequence for each grammar topic, gathering "points" for their houses along the way. (Learn more in this blog post.) Example 2: Essay Writing What if you sequenced your "game board" to teach all the parts of an essay, alternating between instruction and writing? The game board could have built-in checkpoints so that you are giving rough draft feedback (OR actually grading the essay pieces) as you go! It also opens up self-paced learning and a writing workshop format. Get the EDITABLE templates! I hope you've been inspired to think of options for how you could reframe or reformat your teaching and learning sequence! Check out my game board download on Teachers Pay Teachers if you want to try a game board program out for yourself! What do you think of this game board madness? Tell me in the comments below!

Virtual dissections can be a huge help in teaching science, biology, physiology and anatomy. Here are some of the best resources for your lessons and labs.

My grad school professor and I were recently talking about one of the best ways to engage students: games. As you know, many of our children are going home and spending hours with their eyes glued …

Looking for project based learning ideas for middle school or elementary school students? They will love planning a road trip from start to finish!

A middle school teacher's blog: English, History, PBL, GBL, mindfulness, and student engagement.

Back in the fall of 1991 I was a brand new middle school teacher. I had left a two year gig as a high school English teacher which I loved, but felt called to work with middle schoolers. In any case, my mentor teacher ( they didn't have such a program then, but she graciously took me under her wing) shared with me a beginning of the year writing activity she did with her 8th grade language arts students called The Perfect Gift. Now, I have no idea where she got this; as creative as my dear friend Deanna was, she probably came up with this herself. In any case, I used this idea all 14 years I taught middle school and have even used it with the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade reading/language arts students I have taught- all with success! This activity has been tweaked to death and I recently gave it a massive face lift! Click on the picture below to see the listing for this packet in my TPT store. Write to Inform Prompt from the packet I absolutely love using this activity as the beginning of the year. The Perfect Gift is a beginning of the year writing activity that promotes self-reflection, goal setting, and can be used as an assessment of writing skills. In fact, I used it as a beginning of the year writing assessment before we were required to administer a specific, county-wide one. Students are asked to write what a perfect gift would be for them to have a successful year. The gift is to be an abstract noun such as bravery, patience, kindness, responsibility, joy, honesty, creativity, self-control, self-confidence, humor etc. Since I am now teaching in a Christian school, prayer and faithfulness also appear on the list. The first day I bring in a huge gift-wrapped box that always gets the students' attention and is used as my "hook". Students get so excited when I tell them that I have a gift for them and they start guessing what it could be. Imagine their shock when I throw the present on the floor! This is my intro into abstract nouns... I pass the box around so they can shake it, just to make sure it is empty! We discuss concrete and abstract nouns and the way I teach these is to tell them that if they can place the item in the box, then it is most likely a concrete noun. Mini-poster/anchor chart This activity involves the whole writing process and gives me a glimpse not only of students' writing strengths and needs, but also tells me about who they are: their personality, fears, learning styles, and needs. Students write about the gift, what it is, why they want/need it, and how it will help them. At the end they design a cover page or can use the gift box template to decorate and use as a topper for their published piece. By the end of the first week of school, I always feel like I have learned so much about my students from a social, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual perspective. And usually I learn something new about myself too! I keep the gift box visible in the classroom the entire year. Students revisit this writing at the end of each marking period and reflect on whether they have "received" their gift yet. This is how I introduce them to goal setting during the first marking period. Check it out and let me know what you think and whether you and your students would benefit! Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. James 1:17 Have a blessed week!

Teaching research skills to middle school students is a gigantic task! Here are 10 Ideas to Make Teaching Research Easier!

Use these Six Minutes podcast lessons and follow up activities to plan engaging and fun lesson plans for your middle school ELA students.

Fabtastic ancient Greek architecture STEM challenge & activities! Perfect for all ages: preschool, kindergarten, elementary, middle, high school, and adult!

Get your students reading with these 11 great middle school books made into movies.

Dig deep to really get to know the characters.

Using Informational Text as a Vehicle for Adventure Don't you wish we could take class field trips across the globe?! Well, today, I am going to talk about how to make your students world travelers by

Filler Activities for ELA (blog post) What can you do with five extra minutes in secondary ELA? Here are a few ideas to engage students until the bell.

Jumpstart your literary analysis instruction with these engaging and effective activities and mini lessons for middle and high school ELA!

Seven essential elements to include in your next PBL to

Well, I'm a little behind in my posting of units, but I'm just about caught up! After our Halloween unit, we jumped right into inventors and inventions! We first talked about what inventions are and made a T-chart of inventors we already knew and some we learned about using an inventor puzzle game. We dug deeper into Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell's lives by reading books about them and watching United Streaming videos about their discoveries. My wonderful teammate Sam made a Venn diagram with facts about each inventor. We also talked about Benjamin Franklin and his many inventions by reading this wonderful book! I learned a lot from it too! Finally, I had the kids draw their favorite inventions we had learned about that week. The second week of the unit focused more on them as inventors. We talked about how inventors invent things in order to solve a problem or make life easier or better. We used several activities from One Extra Degree's Inventor Unit. We talked about patents and why they are important. I posed several problems from the unit and asked the kids to draw in their science journals inventions that would solve that problem. Our final project was creating their own invention. The kids brought in items from home to create something with and on Friday I just let them loose! It was hilarious to watch them work and talk to each other. We had some very interesting creations when time was up. I had them fill out a sheet from the unit where they drew and labeled their invention with the materials they used. I then displayed them on my reading table (first time all year its been cleared off! hah!) for a little project show. The kids got to walk around the table and look at each other's creations. Here are a couple examples up close! Toy UFO Cloud Sucker : for when you want a sunny day with no clouds Chin rest: you can rest your chin in the cup when you get tired of holding your head up And my all-time favorite: The Laugh-n-shine! Whenever your friend is sad, just swing this in front of them and the smiley face will cheer them right up! Hope you enjoyed my kiddos fun inventions! The next units I will post about will be immigration/cultures and of course, Thanksgiving! Check out my previous post to see examples of my kids' work from my own Thanksgiving unit!

What are types of propaganda? Sharpen critical thinking and analysis skills. Ideal lesson for middle school. Includes a free slide show.