Whether the school year is underway or just about to start, this list of school year essentials for all ages is designed to get your family through the months to come. This isn’t a must-have list of things to have before school. Instead, this list features a few products for each age group that are…
middle school
The New York Times STEM Writing Contest for Teens
The New York Times readers know their Science, Health and Technology sections explore scientific topics that are written in a way everyone can understand. Now The New York Times Learning Network wants to know what questions middle and high schoolers have about how the world works as part of The NY Times STEM Writing Contest. About…
Dear Students, We Did It!
Dear Students, I know this year hasn’t been easy. In fact, it’s been one long rollercoaster ride with more twists, turns, and loops that any of us could have ever imagined but now that our year is coming to a close, I am so glad you stuck with me on this crazy unpredictable ride. When…
Tips and Scripts for Managing Screen Time When School Is Online
We’ve just rounded the corner on the 10 month mark of our county schools being closed. With health metrics not being anywhere close to schools being able to reopen in our area and the first semester coming to a close quickly, parents everywhere are feeling fed up with online school, Managing screen time when school…
LEGO® Education Rebuild The World Inspires Today’s Middle Schoolers to be Tomorrow’s Problem Solvers
This post is sponsored by LEGO® Education I like to tell my 8thgraders that the world of work will look far different than it does today. As a middle school teacher and parent of teens, I want my students and own two children to develop transferable skills that can be applied to any situation. But…
Dear Students, I Miss You!
If you asked me last year if I missed teaching, I would have said no. Ask me today and I’ll tell you I do. I had no plans to return to the classroom but a strange twist of fate brought me back to teaching and I find myself missing my students more than I ever…
Rick Riordan’s Trials of Apollo Continues with The Tyrant’s Tomb
Disney Book Group sent me a copy of The Trials of Apollo #4 to check out and is partnering with me for a giveaway It’s not hard to understand why Rick Riordan is called “storyteller of the gods” by Publishers Weekly. Successful best-selling series such as Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Heroes of Olympus, and the…
I Didn’t Love Middle School But Now I’m Teaching Middle Schoolers!
When you ask people about their middle school experiences, no one ever seems to have happy memories. It doesn’t matter if their middle school years were just for two years (grades 7-8) or also included grade 6. There’s something about middle school (tween & teen angst, perhaps?) that makes it a place that people don’t…
Why The Misadventures of Max Crumbly is a Great Book Trilogy for Boys
Simon & Schuster is partnering with me for this giveaway As middle school students, our kids spend so much time reading books that aren’t of their choosing. English teachers hand them books that are part of required reading and we know that not all of what they’re assigned resonates with them. But now that it’s…
How to Create Effective Routines to Teach Middle School Study Habits at Home
This sponsored post is written in partnership with Workman Publishing Middle school. It’s a completely different ball game from elementary school. A new school where multiple elementary schools converge on a larger campus with more students, having lockers for the first time, figuring out bell times and how to get from one place to the…
