The Surprise is Out!

I gave you a little tease the other day, but I figured it was about time to "let the cat out of the bag."  I still need to do a post about my amaze-balls trip to Vegas for the Teachers Pay Teachers Conference, but one of the big ideas in my head as I traveled home was that I needed to help find a voice for the middle school educator.  On the internet, there are a plethora of resources for elementary education (in fact, there's a ton, to put it mildly).  But why aren't there many resources for secondary teachers?  

In the middle grades, we deal with a strange bunch of kiddos.  Things geared towards K-4 are often too childish and would be considered completely irrelevant to the average middle schooler.  But at the same time, high school materials are too advanced or lack the aesthetic qualities that would excite or grab the attention of a middle schooler.  

I would love to see secondary teachers join together and start sharing their ideas and resources.  I will admit that for many years, I preferred to just close my door and teach my class the way I wanted to teach it.  I didn't need/want anyone's help and I certainly didn't want to just hand over the resources I had spent countless hours creating to my neighboring teachers.  I was very much an island and I liked it.

A few years ago, my school made a BIG move to collaborative planning.  The expectation is that every same subject, same grade level teacher is on the same page.  Which means we plan together daily, teach the same content, administer the same assessments, and share our ideas to come to a mutual agreement on what's best for ALL of our students.  I'm not gonna lie and tell you that things were hunky-dory at first - because they weren't!  But, with the right teacher pairing, collaborative planning can be amazing!

One of the best parts about collaborative planning is the sharing of ideas.  You may think you know it all and have THE BEST lesson for your students, but let's face it... students are changing and there are a lot of teachers out there who have innovative ideas.  So why not tap into this wealth of information?  Why spend all of your free time creating new lessons and activities for your students?  Chances are it's already been done and for a small fee (or in a lot of cases for FREE), it can be yours to use in your classroom.  Take back your nights and weekends, people!  

I am super excited to be joining up with some of the most amazing teacher bloggers and Teachers Pay Teachers sellers out there.  Our mission is to share ideas and resources specifically geared towards the middle grades.  If people ask what you do for a living and you get responses like "Oh, bless your heart", "I could never do that" or "Are you nuts?", then you might be a middle grades teacher and this new blog just might be for you.  Click on the image below to be taken directly to the new blog.

It's definitely in it's beginning stages, but there are some helpful posts on the way and lots of information and resources that you don't want to miss out on.  So, follow us on Bloglovin' and Facebook and start this collaborative journey with us.  I can't wait to hear your feedback and ideas.

If you have some topics you'd like to see covered in the future, please comment below.