Giving Thanks in Middle School

In my district, we have to come to school on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  I know that many of my students will be absent due to holiday travel plans.  So I know I can't teach anything new.  So instead, I'm going to use the time to review main idea with a twist!

My idea is to read The Important Book to them using this video I made:

We will discuss how it relates to main idea in that main idea is the very important part!

Then, I will ask them to brainstorm all the words they would use to tell why they are important by describing themselves and their friends.  I will record these on the Smartboard.


Next, I will hand out turkeys and ask each student to write their name on it.


Last, students will pass their turkey to the left and each person will write one word from the Smartboard on another student's turkey and then pass it again.  When each person gets their own turkey back, we will look at all the reasons why each student is important and give thanks for these important words.  :)

This activity meets the need for a middle school student to be valued and helps to create a community of learners where everyone is important.  

And that is how we will Give Thanks in Middle School!  :)

Get a free copy of some "Thankful Turkeys" that are ready to go by clicking here.

Thanks for stopping by!

12 Days of Christmas Activities (FREEBIE ACTIVITY)

Happy Holidays Everyone!

We hope all you USAers (is that a word?) had a fantastic Thanksgiving holiday with family and friends! We are officially into the Christmas and Holiday season, and it is oh so exciting!

Celebrating the holidays was one of my favorite parts about being a teacher. I've always taught in Catholic schools, so Christmas was a huge deal to say the least. I used to decorate my classroom with Christmas lights, play Christmas music all day long, decorate with student Christmas work everywhere. You get the idea ... I stinking love Christmas.

This year, Jessica and I created an awesome 12 Days of Christmas Activities unit that can be used in conjunction with any unit of study! Since you are all awesome Middle School Mob junkies, I want to direct you to an EXCLUSIVE FREEBIE that is not featured in our TpT Store. You can only access it by CLICKING HERE!

Here are some awesome pictures of the complete unit. How cute are these activities for students, which you can then use as decorations for your classroom? It's a win-win if you ask us!

Wishing you all a joyous Holiday Season!

Book Recommendations on the Tree (Freebie)

Hey everyone! It's Stephanie from The Marvelous Middle. Next week marks the beginning of the holiday season and my favorite time of the year. Every year I put up a tree in my classroom and every year I struggle with using the same old decorations to trim my classroom tree. So this year, I came up with a way to combine my love of YA books with my love of Christmas. I created an ornament that gets my students involved in the decorating and gives them a voice to recommend books to their classmates. I always love hearing my students talk among themselves about great books they have read during SSR and I often eavesdrop on their conversations about the newest book their classmates should checkout. Yes, my students still ask for my opinion but it isn't the only opinion they seek out. They look to their classmates for book advice. This craftivity gives my students one more way to persuade their fellow classmates to read a book they found amazing, incredibly, or totally awesome. 

Here is one student's finished ornament that I will be laminating and getting ready to trim the tree next week.

The ornament looked like this before it was folded and glued together:

During this activity, the students chose a book to recommend and then decorated the cover of the book on the ornament, including the title, author, and book cover decoration. On the other side, they had to explain why the book they chose was a "gift" to read. The expectation was to pull in the other students by giving them just enough to prompt them to read it for themselves.

If you would like to try this in your own classroom, click here to go to this freebie in my TPT store.

I hope you enjoy this activity as much as my middle schoolers have. Happy Holidays and enjoy trimming your classroom tree.

Black Friday Wish List Linky and a Giveaway!

But wait, there's more!

The Mob is getting into the spirit of giving!  Check out this awesome prize pack!

a Rafflecopter giveaway