When Junior High and Middle School was introduced in 1909, the children sat at desks, were lectured, and encouraged to study in preparation for a career as the primary focus. Over the past century, the curriculum has been updated by legislators, and new textbooks have been issued, but not

How We Do Montessori Middle School at Home

This post covers tips to designing a successful middle school art curriculum. It's all about scaffolding, building confidence, and having fun

What I love about teachers is their creativity. In this tour shares about her classroom which has portable walls and is in a gym. It's great to learn from Montessori Teachers around the world. To see more classrooms in our classroom tour series click here ---- Hello! I am Elizabeth Stead and I teach Lower Elementary a

Topographic map activities are more than a state standard, they're a life skill! Learn 5 easy topographic map activities for middle school!

My name is Kaleigh Richards, I am an Upper Elementary Teacher at a Montessori charter school in Reno, Nevada. I have been teaching at this level/in this school for 5 years. I teach 4th, 5th, and 6th grade. I have 34 students. Our school is tuition-free for all students in elementary and middle school. We are a Montesso

Looking for a fun vocabulary activity? This extension is perfect for middle and high school to help encourage critical thinking and associations.

We have been spending a lot of time this quarter drawing, printing and sculpting architectural structures. We started with our reflection watercolor prints of famous architectural wonders from around the world and then moved onto pencil castle drawings showing value. Our last project of this unit was a tiny castle ceramic sculpture. Photos to be posted soon!

As Maria Montessori’s methods gain popularity in public pre-K and elementary classrooms, educators are beginning to understand how (and why) the philosophy translates to high school, too.

Try these easy sound experiments -- Elementary & Middle School kids will LOVE testing the science of sound with this fun wave experiment to create a 'gong' and explore how sound waves travel!

Don't lose your marbles with this fun law of momentum lesson. Grab some marbles, and toilet paper rolls to try out this science lesson.

Need tips for managing station work in middle school? Learn secrets that will ensure success for you and your students! TeachingELAwithJoy.com

You hear it all of the time. What’s inquiry-based learning? What is an inquiry-based lesson? It seems to be all the rage in education...

Last school year, I had very ambitious dreams about starting a classroom economy system in my room. I was desperate for a way to tie in the ...

STEM Challenge- students design a Newton’s Cradle to show the 3rd Law of Motion. This STEM Challenge is designed for upper elementary or middle school students.

I actually meant to upload this post awhile back, but then State Testing madness and prep hit... so I didn't get a chance to post this. My...

This year Kaleb and I have been wandering around the world via books, Little Passports, and various other things we come across in our

Fully editable graphic organizer (2 versions) and 3 pages of name games and community building games to use during a "meet the teacher" period or the first week of class. When students are finished, use the organizers as beginning of the year bulletin board decorations, then as portfolio cover sheet...

Welcome 7th graders! 7th graders did a great job on our first project of Quarter 3. We started with the idea of a graded wash water...

These reflective journal prompts are perfect for students in middle school (and beyond) to help students develop self-awareness, critical thinking skills, and creativity.

After a decade of teaching high school art, I've recently moved to teaching middle school art. It's a blast and there is truly NEVER a dull moment. Through some trial and error, I've learned that some projects are more engaging than others. Below are some of my favorite middle school art projects that have yielded

Free printable tangrams and tangram pattern cards. These activity sheets are great for preschool math learning centers. Students work on building different animals, objects and shapes.

These ideas of fun ways to teach mitosis are fun for both students and teachers. This list includes some classic ideas and few new modern approaches.

FREE scientific method worksheets for elementary and middle school. Guided template for independent investigations, coloring sheet, cut and ...

Looking for some engaging fall activities for middle school classes? Look no further! These are fun, academic activities for math and other classes.

I love doing this lesson with lower elementary classes, upper elementary, and have even worked this lesson into some middle school curriculum. It’s a great way to introduce weaving and to continue to grow those fine motor skills. It always turns out BEAUTIFUL! The students are always really proud of

Teaching writing workshop at the middle school level can be an extraordinarily satisfying experience: middle schoolers are ready and willing to think deeply about issues, they understand more, they…

Name Writing Practice Paper, Primary Writing, Homeschool, Childcare/Daycare Template, Handwriting

When we studied Texas history last year I wanted a new to review the Age of Exploration,and I found a fun Age of Exploration printable game to play.

Getting ready for the first day of the new school year? Here are 11 first day of science class activities for your middle school class!

Set of FREE printable world map choices with blank maps and labeled options for learning geography, countries, capitals, famous landmarks

These science games are an interactive way to get students learning outdoors. There's so much to learn from going out and observing nature!

In the first month of school, teachers are usually focused on classroom setup, establishing procedures, launching routines, and digging into the first unit. Although we DO want students to be organized and to feel safe as individuals, we also need them to open up and collaborate as part of a bigger classroom community. Read on for 9 ideas about how to create bonding, shared experiences, and interactions that foster community-building. (By the way, you can check out a similar blog post of ours about community-building here.) The SuperHERO Teacher Teaching kindness and collaboration amongst students is such an important part of a positive classroom community! I love using interactive bulletin boards to encourage students to motivate each other. Recently, I created this nature-themed bulletin board using Polaroid frames with inspiring quotes, twine, and clothes pins. Basically, if students need a bit of motivation, they can take a quote from the board, but they must replace it with a new quote! At the end of the year, students will be exchanging quotes from each other-- making a strong classroom relationship! Here's the link. Addie Williams I work hard to create a collaborative and welcoming classroom community and one way I do this is through writing about kindness. I share a kindness quote with my students as a writing prompt and have them work on it individually before sharing their ideas with a partner and then with a larger group. I ask them to look for similarities in their responses. Demonstrating to my students that I value kindness and community early on in the year will hopefully create a sense of caring throughout the year. Use these free Kindness Quotes to get started! Secondary Sara One of the hurdles to community-building is when students aren't willing to be vulnerable, they try to be perfect, or they compete instead of connect. As much as strengths and growth mindset are important, we teachers also need to help students identify and tackle their weaknesses in an honest way. I like doing this in a humorous way by "curing" student diseases. I joke about students who have "Procrastinitis", and when students own that problem, it becomes a springboard for other areas of concern as well (like upset binders, high test pressure, and silence infections). Get the poster set AND activities to accompany them here. Danielle Hall One of the ways students build our classroom community is by working together to solve problems or puzzles. I use team trivia to start out our class at the beginning of the year, getting students used to collaborating and thinking critically. They develop a healthy sense of teamwork and competition. Here's a free week to get you started. The Classroom Sparrow A simple way to create a positive classroom community is to display work from students around a classroom. It doesn't necessarily have to be an assignment, even a collaborative discussion full of insight from everyone in a class adds positivity and shows that everyone's opinion/view is valued! If you're lacking in work to display, simply begin a class with a simple prompt, motivational quote, or question! Here is a collaborative poem I had students create to begin a poetry unit. Everyone took 10-15 mins to cut out 30-40 words, then I paired students and peers to create a beautiful and colourful example of poetry, which remained on my bulletin boards for the length of the unit! The Daring English Teacher I teach at a very diverse school, and there are 23 different home languages represented in our student body. Bringing together such a diverse group can sometimes be challenging, so I created Classroom Community Bell Ringers to help us all find a common ground. These bell ringers include quotes about love, acceptance, diversity, and tolerance and a brief writing prompt. My students take the first five minutes in class to read the quote and quickly respond to the prompt. Then we share our responses aloud. This exercise has helped forge new connections amongst students who once thought there was no common ground. Stacey Lloyd At the beginning of the year we always spend time thinking about positive and negative behaviors in the classroom: social, emotional and academic. Students come up with their suggestions by walking around the room and anonymously adding their thoughts to various prompts. I then compile these into a list and have students all sign their names on the document - which stays on the wall all year. Any time I find a student acting out or being unkind or unhelpful, I point to their signature and hold them to account. Room 213 We spend a great deal of time during the first few weeks building our classroom climate. I want kids to feel free to discuss their views and to know that it's okay to disagree with someone, as long as they do so respectfully. We develop a class code of conduct, and I put up posters to remind them to be empathetic, kind and understanding of differences. They are a good visual reminder of the things we discussed and the exercises we do during the first few days of school. You can grab them for free here. Presto Plans Building a positive classroom community is an intentional process. One way to do this is by having students complete short challenges that encourage kindness, collaboration, teamwork, expression, and the sharing of ideas and opinions. Start your year or semester by presenting short classroom challenges that can be used as bell-ringers, a class close-up activity, or a fun way to start or end the week. I suggest you set up a bulletin board that allows you to build suspense and reveal one challenge at a time. Make the challenges fun, collaborative, and stress-free. For example, you might consider getting students to write a thank-you card for someone, write a funny top 10 list, play a game of 20 questions, or interview a classmate. We hope you enjoy these ideas! Tell us what you think, or tell us more ideas in the comments!

Build some important geometry skills with this fun graphing activity. Your middle schooler will practice plotting points on a graph.

Too many classroom icebreakers require students to take big social risks with people they barely know. Or they don't really help students get to know each other. Or they are just plain cheesy.

It's been a while since I've posted a project - it always seems to be that I'll have a couple of weeks where we are "in process", then sudd...

Montessori adolescent programs utilize an integrated, cosmic approach to academics for erdkinder (children of the earth) preparing to enter the global community.

Middle School students will love this pop art lesson that focuses on the principle of movement. It also makes a great abstract portrait that is frame-able!

Back to School Survey for Middle and High School Students - FREE and FUN way to meet your students.

Have fun with this FREE Nature Study with Trees and Leaves that lets upper elementary and middle school students draw, label, color, and more!

This is a fun project based learning activity where students build a playground to learn about area and perimeter.

Ready-to-use in minutes! Get these critical thinking preschool worksheets and help your child develop such important life skill.