Category Archives: Uncategorized

HOW many times have you provided feedback for a student to help them improve their CER or lab conclusion writing, and then been disappointed when the student didn’t implement your feedback in their next assignment? If I had a nickel….. Have you logged in to Magic School yet? It’s a fantastic versatile AI program thatContinue reading “Make CER Writing a Game!”

Here’s a confession – I get bored easily. Teaching the same content 5 times a day (for 37 years) is boring. So I shake it up a little by adding movement into my middle school science lessons. It gives me entertainment, engages the kids, and gives us all a little brain break. Why incorporate movement?Continue reading “Incorporating Movement into your lessons”

Learning science is a lot like learning a new language. The vocab can really bog a middle schooler down – even if they grasp the concept of Punnett squares, for example, words like homozygous and allele make success unachievable. Middle schoolers need engaging, interactive ways to reinforce new terms so they truly stick. In thisContinue reading “12 Quick Ways to Reinforce Vocabulary”

Are your students ready to compete in March Mammal Madness?! Mine sure are – their older siblings have told them how much fun they’ll have and now they’re really excited to start! What is March Mammal Madness? March Mammal Madness (MMM), whose logo is “If you’re learning, you’re winning,” is a bracket-style competition modeled byContinue reading “MMM and Animal Kingdom Trivia”

Happy Darwin Day! Darwin Day is an annual celebration that honors the life and scientific contributions of Charles Darwin, the renowned naturalist best known for his groundbreaking work on the theory of evolution through natural selection. Held on February 12, Darwin’s birthday, this day serves as a global tribute to the profound impact his ideasContinue reading “Darwin Day in Middle School Science”

Grit—the perseverance and passion to achieve long-term goals—is a critical skill that helps students succeed, both in school and in life. But if you’ve been teaching for a while, you may have noticed that students today seem to give up more easily when things get tough. Building resilience in the classroom might be the ultimateContinue reading “Building Resilience in the Classroom: A Teacher’s Guide to Grit”

Teaching is hard, even with all of the materials provided to you. Even the best text book or canned curriculum needs filling out – bellringers, review activities, practice worksheets, assessments, cloze notes. In hindsight, I wish I had spent those Saturday mornings when I was a new(er) teacher with my kids, watching cartoons or playingContinue reading “Freebies for Earth Science Teachers!”