Back to School CRAZINESS!

Hello everyone! It's Megan from Snapshots of Sixth Grade here!

How many of you feel like this after your first day of school?

How about after your first week of school?

I always start of the school year with so much energy and then forget how crazy the first week of school is. I absolutely wouldn't change it for the world, but I do love once all of the routines get a lot faster!

Here are some of my favorite back to school activities:

1.  Since I am a middle school Language Arts teacher, I always try to incorporate Language Arts type activities for the beginning of the school year. One of my favorites is using the book, Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal. You can find that book here. I read the book, which talks about 'making your mark!' and how are you unique. This is especially perfect for me in sixth grade because they are coming into school with new people and have a chance to completely start over. I have them then create and decorate their own exclamation mark with specific things that are special to them. Here is the exclamation mark ready to go for you ready to download.
2. I also found this at the beginning of the school year, which I thought was great for my sixth graders. It is a middle school survival kit, which has so many great tools for the beginning of the year. What a great product! Totally worth the money! I used it a lot this year. 
3. I think it is so important to document their first and last day of school so I do it with a picture frame.
   
   Here is me with our frame for the last day. I then, put both their first and last day photos together and send it to them over the summer! It's fun summer mail for them and a great keepsake. The three links next are what I use to display their first day of school photos. Here is the instagram symbol. Here is the #firstdayofschool and here is the instagram words.  

I hope you are all having a great start to the school year or will have a great start to the school year, if you haven't started yet! Happy back to school! Enjoy it, it will be the end of the year before we know it!

Back to School Tips and Tidbits!!!

Back to school is upon us…some of you (myself included) have already started, while others may be enjoying their last few days of summer break!  As I prepared to start the year, one area I wanted to focus on was being more consistent with my expectations and routines, starting on day 1.  Over the years, I have learned just how important this is.  

Here’s an example of some of the expectations I require of my students:

• Line up outside the door in a straight line until I invite you in (this allows time for the current class to get all of their belongings, or for a quick chat w/ a student in b/t classes).

• Immediately grab warm-up notebook upon entering the room (or whatever you have them use) and begin warm-up.  Having students begin work as soon as they come in sets the tone for the rest of the class and gives you time to do attendance, etc.).  

• Bathroom Use- I found a great way to prevent the constant interruption of having students ask to use the restroom by using “Potty Passes.”  I found this great idea on In the Middle’s blog, and you can access them here.  Students get 5 potty passes per quarter.  Of course, if it’s an emergency and they’re out of passes, I would still let them go. 

As I stated previously, it's so important for students to have a warm-up/bell ringer posted on the board and ready to go as soon as they enter the room.  I felt that it was important to hold them accountable for this, so I decided to choose a group leader (or row leader, depending on how your class is set up) each week to check each group member's warm-up.  Each student can get up to 20 points for completing the warm-up, and then making the necessary corrections once we go over it together.  If they don't correct the mistakes, they only receive partial credit.  Then, on Fridays, I collect the charts and give them each a classwork grade.  You can access the chart for FREE here!

Also, during the first couple of days of school, I give each group or pair a set of Student Interest Task Cards.  The task cards allow me to get to know my students, which is extremely important in building that relationship from the get-go.  Check these out here!

Being prepared is key to having 

successful year, and this is the best 

advice I could give to any teacher.  Best 

of luck to all of you, and I hope you have 

fabulous 2015-16 school year!!! 

I Dare You!

Hi all!

Jen from Teaching Teens in the 21st, here! Have you gone back to school yet? If you're like me, you've been back for a few weeks, and you may already be feeling the pressure to have your room, lessons, everything perfectly prepared and ready each day. I'm here to tell you, as a Type A personality with anxiety, what I'm about to tell you will FREAK you out at first, but stick with me. Here's my dare for you...

Tomorrow, as you start getting ready to leave work, leave your teacher bag behind. Yep, I said it.

Take your keys, take your purse, take your lunch bag, but leave everything else at school. All of it, don't try to sneak your teacher planner into your bag. I see you. That's cheating. :) Get in your car and go. Roll the windows done and crank some music like it's Friday!

Go home. Spend time with your family, your dog, cat, gerbil, television, whatever. Make dinner. Load the dishwasher. Heck, even play Candy Crush for awhile. Then look at the clock and realize it's not 10pm like it is when you come home and work on school stuff.

This week I vowed not to bring anything home with me, and it has been life changing. I've made dinner, done laundry, caught up on tv, snuggled with my puppy, cleaned up so our house looks less like a frat house, and relaxed! I actually drove to school with a smile on my face today, which was new because I'm usually overtired and exhausted on the way to work!

Are you thinking, "I never bring my teacher bag home, this doesn't even apply to me!" Then congratulations, because you are already awesome and enjoying your life the way you should.

Please don't let yourself get burned out in the first month of school, enjoy the sunshine before the days get too short, and live it up. Work will be there in the morning, and you will find a way to get it done. Enjoy the holiday weekend, and tell me on our Middle School Mob facebook page me if you took my dare! :)

How to Get Your Weekends Back

Hi guys!

Caitlin here from The Styled Teacher (formerly Teach Inspire Change). I'm excited to talk to you today about two AWESOME strategies that I use to make sure that I can enjoy my weekends thoroughly. As much as I would love to take credit for this, my hubby is actually the mastermind behind the brilliance.

Basically, I got sick. and. tired. of working on Sundays. I was completely over spending 4-5 hours of my time prepping for the week, not getting to watch Sunday night football (go Niners!), etc. You all know what I'm talking about.

So my husband said one day, "As much as you probably don't want to, stay late on Friday and get everything ready for next week." JUST. DO. IT.

And so I did. And my life changed.

So I challenge you to do the same thing in order to more fully enjoy your weekends. I have some excellent tools that I use that you must absolutely begin to implement into your life.

STRATEGY ONE: This Friday Checklist that I use. You can download a copy of it for FREE by clicking here, or you can download my entire FREE Back to School eBook (that of course includes this checklist and much, much more) by signing up for my Teach Inspire Change newsletter, here.

I like to laminate the checklist, tape it to my desk, and reuse throughout the year. Gotta save the trees people!

STRATEGY TWO: I use this file folder to organize all of my copies for the following week on Friday. You can read about that here. This was the biggest game changer for me.

If you use either of these methods in your classroom this year, please post and tag me @teachinspirechange or send me an email so I can check it out at teachinspirechange@gmail.com.

Meet Julia from History from the Middle

Hi everyone!  I'm Julia from History from the Middle!  

Welcome to the Middle School Mob!  I'm so excited to join this AMAZING group of middle school educators.  Thank you for visiting our collaborative blog!

I LOVE to incorporate writing into my lessons anytime I can!  This Primary Source Analysis helps to support the Common Core push to provide evidence, and truly allows students to have a real connection with that particular historical period!

Although I currently teach single subject history, I come from a multiple subject background.  My specialty is being able to "bridge" the two, and bring that cross-curricular component into a single subject class!  I like to incorporate writing, science, math, and reading skills alongside my content area to make for a rich learning experience for my students.  

With that, I am also a technology LOVER and incorporate it into EVERYTHING that I do! 

 I teach at a 1:1 Chromebook school, so everything that I do and create is always done with a technology twist!  I'm hoping to be able to share my passion of teaching with a cross-curricular approach while incorporating technology with you all as I blog with my fellow Middle School Mob collaborators!

Meet Taliena from Koch's Odds 'N Ends!

Hello! I'm Taliena from Koch's Odds 'N Ends and I'm so excited to be part of such an amazing group of middle school bloggers!

I can't begin to explain how excited I've been for my first post on this fun collaborative blog! Even just the preparation for the start of it has been fun. I truly hope you've enjoyed getting to know all of my fellow Middle School Mob bloggers thus far, and without further adieu I'll tell you a bit about myself!
 
I live and teach in (always) sunny and warm Arizona! I teach 8th grade English and 8th Grade Honors English at a middle school in the East Valley. I am married to a wonderful man, who recently went back to school to get his doctorate in physical therapy. We don't have children, but we do have an adorable pompoo (pomeranian-poodle mix) named Guster who has is full of enough energy and mischief to keep us busy each and every day.

I can't say that I have any crazy or even interesting hobbies. Just like most teachers, I'm pretty exhausted after the school day and want nothing more than to flop down on the couch and pass out. I thoroughly enjoy binge watching Netflix while grading papers though!

With my school year in full-swing, I've already begun teaching my curriculum. With that said, I've included the link to an outline for basic paragraph structure that I have my own students glue into their own vocabulary notebooks at the beginning of the year. I hope you'll find it as useful as I do!


Happy teaching!

About Shyra from Junior High Core Values

Have you ever felt like a juggler, in a circus tent, that was on fire, in an earthquake? But you loved it because it was the best earthquake fire circus juggling act ever?

That's one of many reasons why I love teaching junior high! Greetings! I'm Shyra and I blog at Junior High Core Values  I've been a teacher for 13 years and I've had the honor of working with every grade level. Junior high, however is my favorite.

I teach at a private school in California and we have "core values" that define our school. I teach sixth grade. This involves teaching religion, language arts, and social studies to 6th-8th grade.  I love staying busy, so I am also yearbook moderator, student council moderator, on the administrative team, the Learning Support Coordinator, and on the Diocesan Special Needs Board.  Who needs sleep right? I just wish I had the salary to support all the hats that I wear!

My blog name is important to me because in teaching our school's core values, I also believe that junior high students, particularly as they enter 6th grade, need to find out the characteristics that make them unique and who they are as a person.

A lot of my time is spent with school related things ( as you can see) but I also love reading, beading and making jewelry, scrapbooking/card making, painting and drawing and I'm a bit of a geek. Too many hobbies, but I love them all!

I'm excited to work and connect with other teachers from all over the country and globe because that's what makes society grow and improve!

Come take a look as the kiddos and I begin their junior high journey and discover where their core values are!