Even without the historical end to the 2019-2020 school year, I think teachers can agree that most students experience the ‘summer slide’ when they return to school in the fall which means there is a need for online math courses this summer. If you are not familiar with the term summer slide, here is Scholastic’s explanation: “The concept of the summer slide has been on researchers’ ...
Free Math Performance Tasks for Middle School
Middle School Math Teachers, we would love to give you THREE math tasks that you can use for the next school year! They are designed to be used in the classroom or with distance learning! Click the link below, enter your email address and we send these right over to your email. Then, read below for different ways to incorporate them into your classroom! This is a thank you for all ...
Why You Should Use Exit Tickets
“You can’t correct what you can’t detect.” Have you ever been shocked by the results after a quiz or test? Was this also the first time you had gathered data from students on the given topic? Usually, that was the case for me. Teachers need to monitor how students are progressing daily to have a real understanding of whether or not they are ready to move on. I would fall into the ...
Teacher Desk Supplies You Need at Your Desk
Teachers love Post-it Notes and fun colored pens. We can always be counted on to have the latest and greatest of school supplies. But what else does a teacher need at their desk? Teachers practically live in their classrooms, so what supplies will come to the rescue over and over again? Here is our comprehensive list of teacher desk supplies you will not regret having in your ...
Tech Spotlight: Go Formative
If you are unsure of what the 2020 school year might bring, or perhaps you have been hoping to flip your classroom, Go Formative is a great tech tool for you to consider. Let’s talk about Go Formative, and see how our teacher friend and blog follower Lauren used it in the classroom and for distance learning. TECH SPOTLIGHT: GO FORMATIVE What is Formative? With Formative (sometimes Go ...
Distance Learning with Maneuvering the Middle
In March, when the United States shut down due to COVID-19, the team members at Maneuvering the Middle had an emergency Friday afternoon meeting to discuss how we were going to pivot to support teachers during this unprecedented time. Since then, we were able to support distance learning by providing 16 free instructional videos, provide Google Forms exit tickets on various topics, and ...
The Middle School Syllabus
Class syllabus. Did your eyes just glaze over? That’s what happened when I went over my class syllabus with my students the first year I taught. I’m pretty sure it was 3 pages in size 12 Times New Roman font. I also remember a disproportionate amount of my first day of class discussing it. Not my finest teaching moment! Your class syllabus does not have to be boring! Here are some ...
6 Ideas for Bell Ringers
Bell ringers, warm ups, or do firsts -- whatever you or your school might call them, they all serve the same purpose: to get students working at the start of class. This helps communicate to students that every single minute of class time is valuable. I have found that when the first five minutes of class run smoothly, the rest of class time will run smoothly (and I can actually take ...
WAYS TO END THE SCHOOL YEAR REMOTELY
This school year has been unlike any other school year ever. I think we can all say that while we don’t know what next year will hold, we can do our best to finish this year strong. I was thinking about how I normally would end the school year. Our grade level participated in an end of year field trip after STAAR, my students would pie my face based on a test prep incentive they were ...
Desmos Activities for Middle School
Desmos is a free and highly engaging site for students and teachers to use. Our roundup of our favorite Desmos activities for Algebra 1 was so popular, we thought it would be nice to create another roundup specific to middle school standards. And since some teachers have a few more weeks left of remote learning, I figured now would be the best time. Note: I organized these by grade ...