Middle schoolers will sing the praises of this music program. The resource, designed as an overview for music instructors, is loaded with ideas, activities, and links. Not a sour note in the packet. 

Foster community in your classroom and encourage learners to get up and get to know each other. Individuals each receive the classmate inventory handout included and use it to fill in information about their fellow scholars. Once they...

Involve class members in establishing classroom rules by providing them with a worksheet that asks them to develop four rules, describe how they will teach these rules to their classmates, how they will reinforce the rules, and detail...

Is DNA still present after picking fruit or cooking vegetables? Biology scholars extract and collect DNA strands in an impactful lab. Working groups prepare their samples and compare their results to negative and positive standard...

Students view various aspects of peer pressure and their complications. Students define the issues of uniform rules and design a uniform for their teachers. Students develop ideas for dress codes.

Young scholars list specific boundaries in their school neighborhood and explain their possible purpose. They examine a neighborhood and see what connects us and what divides us. They, in groups, make maps of various neighborhoods and...

Tired of 20-somethings portraying high school students? Tired of athletes and principals always being the villains? Class members examine the student and teacher stereotypes presented TV shows and films that are et in schools. 

A 24-page manual provides principals, educators, and other school personnel with factual information about sexual orientation development, important legal principles they must consider, and problematic efforts to change sexual...

You arrive at school only to be told you have no place there. Scholars research the Supreme Court cases Mendez v. Westminster and Delgado v. Bastrop ISD, both dealing with school segregation. Two short video clips as well as small group...

S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders is the anchor text in a unit that asks readers to reflect on their own identity, their place in their family, in groups with which they identify, and in school. 

Making money is important to teenagers. It is up to your apprentices to determine how much two wage earners make with their after school jobs. Participants work with a table, an equation, and a graph and compare the two workers to see...

Many of us have multiple identities. There's who we are at home, school, friends, and strangers. And often these identities come with different names. The third activity in the First Days of School series examines how names reflect...

The final lesson in the First Days of School series focuses on how to build a classroom community where all class members can feel safe, heard, and valued. The resource includes step-by-step directions for engaging pupils in developing...

Look back on the school year by spending a few days putting together books that learners can reflect on in the coming years. Learners note down personal information and their favorite things, respond to questions with goals, stories, and...

Can you believe there have already been 100 days in the school year? Help your learners document their time in your class with a newspaper format. They write about the 100 Day celebrations, as well as drawing what they will...

Go beyond a traditional end-of-the-year survey and have your middle school pupils compile a portfolio of work illustrating their progression as a writer. 

Encourage your class members to take the time to reflect on significant events and people from the school year. While originally designed for an AVID class, the writing prompts in this worksheet will inspire self-reflection for...

Here's a great way to build community during the first days of the new school year. Participants read personal narratives, then craft and share their stories with others.

A 41-page curriculum guide tells the story of the untold stories of American Superheroines! Divided into three modules, the guide is designed to be used before, during, and after viewing the 2012 documentary Wonder Women! The Untold...

Rumpelstiltskin understood the power of names. The second lesson in the First Days of School series focuses on building community by recognizing the importance of the relationships among names, identities, and cultures. Learners engage...

Names come with all sorts of nuances and can influence how we see ourselves and how others see us. To gain insight into the power of names, class members journal about their names and then read a short essay about a girl and her feelings...

In the post-pandemic classroom, it's more important than ever to begin the school year by building a strong sense of trust and community. Using the Make Meaning and Big Paper teaching techniques, groups develop a definition of community...

Students explore the importance of classroom jobs. They observe a puppet who is irresponsible and never gets her work completed and then discuss whether or not this puppet should be given a classroom job. As a class, they examine the...

High school economists learn about the stock market in a project where they "buy" and track stocks. The author of this resource reports it is the high point of her 12th grade economics course, but no resources are attached. After viewing...