Using Coloring Pages in Middle School Science Do you need relaxing, calming activities for your science classroom that still focuses on concepts? Is the noise level climbing in your classroom? Using coloring pages in middle school science may seem a bit unconventional, but it is a powerful tool! Let’s look at how incorporating concept based…
How to Have a Positive Relationship with Parents Keeping a positive relationship with parents of your students is probably the most difficult part of teaching. One upset parent can cause you to have unnecessary anxiety and stress and make it difficult to focus on your class. After teaching for over 35 years, and dealing with…
Use Backwards Lesson Planning to Create Science Labs Do you struggle with balancing time during labs and hands-on activities? Have you tried backwards lesson planning to create your science labs? I have mentioned this method in several of my blog posts, but I thought it would be helpful to focus only on this method to…
Mistakes I Made as a New Middle School Science Teacher If I could go back and correct the mistakes I made as a new middle school science teacher, I’m sure my 30+ year teaching journey would have been much smoother! I’m going to be transparent and tell you some of my biggest mistakes with the…
So How Do You Develop Relationships with Middle School Students? Have you heard that it is crucial that you develop relationships with middle school students, but you don’t know where to start? After teaching middle school science for over 30 years, I feel that developing relationships is definitely the most important tool. Let’s go over…
Teaching Students Organizational Skills Teaching students organizational skills is critical and will stay with students long after their time in your classroom. I have often had alumni students come back to tell me how much they appreciated my “forcing them“ to do proper Cornell notes and to keep an organized notebook. They tell me that…
A Day in My Life Using Digital Science Notebooks Are you contemplating using highly engaging, digital science notebooks in your classroom? Do you need convincing? I’ve been teaching middle school science for 30+ years and the last decade I’ve been using digital notebooks. I have zero interest in going back to messy, spiral notebooks…
72 Tips Your College Never Told You About Being A Teacher What your college never told you about teaching is a lot! Are you a newer teacher? You have probably realized that teachers are basically expected to “learn on the job” in many essential areas. Unless you have a full time mentor teacher, it can…
6 Types of Science Bellringers to Start Your Class The first three to five minutes of your class are the most critical. Science bellringers, warm ups, or starters, are highly effective in terms of bringing the students to order. These activities help gather the student’s focus and get them organized. The first few minutes of…
7 Reasons Why You Should Keep A Teacher Journal Why should you keep a teacher journal? Do you scribble notes in your lesson planner about what you taught each day, but never go back and read them? Are you having trouble remembering what you taught to each of your many classes last week? Do you…
