This classroom management strategy for your middle school classroom is incredibly simple. The goal is to reach 15:00 by the end of each marking period (you could even utilize this strategy weekly and have students try to reach 1:00 or…
The way we begin our mornings really sets a tone for the rest of the day. During my first few years of teaching, I didn’t realize how truly important those first 5 minutes of class were. I was always taught to…
I’m not sure why I hadn’t discovered this before, but if you are a Google Classroom school, you should absolutely use Google Classroom for absent work. I implemented this last year for the first time, and it was AMAZING! Handling…
We’re already getting into the Christmas spirit around here. In fact, there are Christmas carols playing as we write this! And we’re excited to tell you all about this fun Holiday Classroom Community Challenge (we’ll be starting it right after we…
We like to follow the Boy Scouts’ motto “Be prepared” when it comes to absent students. This means that during the first week of school somewhere between going over our bathroom policy and playing some back to school activities, we address…
Between the two of us, we have switched grade levels and schools seven times in our teaching careers! With each transition there is obviously a new curriculum to learn and new expectations for ourselves and our students. We’ve learned that…
As much as I would love to take credit for this brilliant idea, it was first introduced to me by the 4th grade teacher at our school. And I have to say, it is one of my favorite behavior management…
One of my biggest pet peeves is when our class is in the midst is a brilliant class discussion, and a student raises their hand … I call on them thinking more brilliance is about to be shared, and they ask,…
The first day of school. It’s a whirlwind few hours that leave us ready for bed by 7PM and longing for the carefree days of July when all your “worries” revolved around finding a beach towel and some sunscreen. But,…
Like any teacher, we both want to instill in our students a sense of pride in working hard to achieve goals that they set for themselves. What we found though was that in the day-to-day craziness of running a classroom,…
Hi there! We're two middle school ELA teachers with a mission to share ideas, tips, and tricks for effectively teaching reading and writing in the secondary classroom. We're so happy you stopped by!
Caitlin + Jessica
