Blogging is hard, y’all.
But we’re back and ready to go!
We thought we would start the year off by sharing ten resources that we frequently use in our own middle school classrooms.
ELA:
Write On With Miss G – I’ve purchased several of her items on TPT and have loved each one – her Mock Trial is my favorite. She’s a high school teacher, so I’m unable to benefit from her content-based items, but she has several options that can easily be used for middle school.
Building Book Love – This is another high school teacher with resources on TPT that can be used in a middle school ELA classroom. She has several items that are great for end-of-unit activities and items that are in-theme with holidays.
2ndaryELA Facebook Group – I joined this group last year have gotten so many great ideas! It’s a group made up of English teachers at all levels from across the country. You can find anything from content-related discussions, classroom management, RTI ideas, etc. There’s no better place to ask a question and get a little feedback.
Quill – This is great for grammar review and remediation. Plus, it’s research-based, so it’s RTI approved. You select a grade level, create a class, and choose your assignments for your students.
Peergrade – Peergrade is a great resource for productive student-to-student feedback. You can create a rubric that you want your students using as they work, and the website shuffles their uploaded essays and disperses them randomly and anonymously. It also allows students to rank the helpfulness of the feedback that they receive, so that helps with accountability.
Social Studies:
iCivics – This website has great resources and lesson plans for history teachers. I love how each lesson has multiple activities for each lesson plan. All lesson plans are also clearly laid out. One perk of this website is the maps that are used in most lesson plans (it is difficult to find good map activities). Check out this lesson plan on the Louisiana Purchase! It is one of my favorites.
Reading Like a Historian – This is my favorite history website. Every lesson has wonderful sources that cover a wide variety of Social Studies topics. It even has world history lesson plans also. Full lesson plans are available on this site which include primary and secondary sources. Under each source difficult vocabulary words are mentioned, and their definition is give beside it. These lesson plans are a great way to not only focus on sourcing, but vocabulary also.
8th Grade TN History Weebly – If you teach 8th Grade US History you need to view this ever-changing resource document. While attending an in-service a few summers ago, this website was shared with me. I love it because it has every 8th Grade TN Social Studies standard listed and under them, websites are listed that Tennessee teachers found useful for that standard. Feel free to add to this document to make it even better.
TED-Ed – Many of the short videos I show in my class come from TEDed. The videos are educational and cover a wide variety of topics. I enjoy showing them for their short length and their visual appeal.
Khan Academy – If you have been in the educational world for very long, you have probably heard of Khan Academy. Most people associate the website with math, but it is an amazing resource for videos, informational articles, lessons and quizzes for Social Studies. Even though I teach 8th Grade Social Studies, I like to use the AP US History resources on this site to challenge some of my upper-level students.
Do you have any great resources for middle school classrooms? Please share!
stuckinthemiddleteachingresources.blog 