President’s Day Activities for Middle School

President’s Day Activities

President’s Day is coming up soon, but how should you celebrate it with your middle school students? As a teacher, celebrating President’s Day with your students is a great way to help them understand the role of the presidency in our government and past presidents’ impact on our country. This post will highlight several President’s Day activities and teaching ideas that you can do with your students that are no-prep or low-prep! Even if you don’t teach government on a regular basis, we hope you’ll find these activities to be a meaningful addition to your teaching.

President’s Day Lesson Plan

Our preferred President’s Day lesson plan is having students make a selection of historical baseball cards about past Presidents of their choice. In this activity, students must include the President’s name, a sketch or image of them, the dates that they were President, their political party, three major accomplishments, and their legacy. This information is often in the back of textbooks (or mixed in throughout them), but we recommend having access to computers for the best results. If you are a U.S. history teacher, you can continue to use these baseball cards throughout the year to correspond with the presidents in office during each unit!

An alternative idea to help your students learn more about the Presidency could include having your students write a letter to the current President (or a past President) with ideas about how to improve the country or the future. For an additional option, hold a mock presidential election in class. This is a great way to teach students about the election process and the importance of voting. Divide the class into teams, with each team representing a different candidate. Students could research their candidate, create campaign posters and speeches, and hold debates to decide who will be the class president.

President’s Day Worksheets

While the previously listed activities may require some extra preparation, our two-sided President’s Day Activity Sheet is a printable worksheet with no extra effort needed. Print double-sided, and you are good to go! There are three different activities included: a presidential logic puzzle, a presidential math activity, and a word search. Take a closer look at the resource here or in the image below.

Celebrating President’s Day

While President’s Day happens once a year, you can certainly celebrate the holiday year-round. In this case, you might like this set of printable President posters. This complete set not only includes all of the past Presidents with some additional information in several sizes to display around your classroom but also some presidential flashcards. This can be a helpful tool for your students and could even be used for memory games or guessing games.

If your students need more context about the government, check out our blog post about teaching the U.S. Constitution here.

8 Classroom Decor Themes for Middle School

Classroom Decor Themes

Classroom Decoration Ideas

It’s back to school season again, and you might be interested in switching up classroom decor themes or trying something new with your classroom decorations. However, you might not know where to start. You might also find some classroom decor resources to be too “cutesy” or too complicated. You might want something that is easy to use and won’t take much time. If so, you are in the right place! In this blog post, we will give you 8 different classroom decor themes that are perfect for middle school.

Classroom Decorations by Theme

When decorating your classroom, there are some important resources to think about or types of classroom decor that can be the most helpful. Here are 5 simple ideas to get you started:

Welcome Banner: A welcome banner is a standout piece of decor that will catch your students’ attention and help them feel like they belong in your class. Our welcome banner templates are editable, so you can spell anything you want, such as your class name or your name!

Classroom Rules: It is crucial to have classroom rules to ensure that your students understand your expectations, but what rules should you have? How many rules should there be? We’ve developed a template with just four rules that encompass the most essential classroom rules, reminding students to Be Prepared, Be Punctual, Be Present, and Be Polite. Each of these larger breakdowns features several related ideas. You can see these ideas below!

Inspirational Quote Posters: Your students will spend a lot of time in your classroom, so it is nice to have inspiring quotes displayed around the room. We have a variety of inspirational quote posters that are available in each of the following themes so you can simply print and display them with no extra effort!

Daily Agenda Slides: Have you switched to digital agenda slides yet? Switching from writing down the day’s plans on the board to using daily agenda slides on Google Slides was a game changer and saved so much time! In our themed daily agenda slides, you can include the plans for the day, your bell ringer, the homework for the day, any important announcements, and more!

Printable Bookmarks: If you want to give your students a simple and fun gift for back to school or want some simple prizes on hand that connect to your class theme, we have some printable coloring bookmarks that your students will love!

Now that we have addressed some helpful types of classroom decor and related resources, scroll through some different ideas and examples to spark your creativity about what might work in your classroom!

Travel Themed Classroom Decor

Coffee Shop Themed Classroom Decor

Plant Themed Classroom Decor

Book Themed Classroom Decor

Rainbow Themed Classroom Decor

Game Themed Classroom Decor

Movie Themed Classroom Decor

Sports Themed Classroom Decor

Classroom Decor for Back to School

We hope you find these classroom decor ideas to be helpful! Remember, less can be more with setting up an inviting space for your students (and it can save you a lot of time)! If you are looking for other back to school activities and teaching ideas during the first week of school, check out this related blog post!

Inspirational Quotes for Students

When decorating your classroom for back to school, having inspirational quotes for students on the walls or your bulletin boards can make a huge difference. Since your students will spend a lot of time in your classroom, why not share empowering messages and ideas from successful people, leaders, and other historical figures that they can observe and learn from throughout the school year? These printable inspirational quotes posters are easy to use and ready to display with minimal effort, making them a perfect last-minute option.

Inspirational Quotes by Theme

There are many different inspirational quote themes listed below that are ready to print and display in your class! Some posters you may choose to print and display all year, while others you may choose to rotate throughout the year, such as the seasonal quote posters! Each set of posters can be printed on regular 8.5 by 11-inch printer paper, and while they look best printed in color, they can also be printed in black and white. Check out the following themes for different ideas!

Growth Mindset Quotes Posters

These posters remind your students to keep trying, even in the midst of short-term failure, and help them develop a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset, which is a great message for students to take away from being in your class!

Book-Themed Quotes Posters

If you love reading or teach English, literature, or language arts, these book-themed quote posters foster a love of reading and highlight the many benefits of reading!

Coffee Shop-Themed Quotes Posters

Channel the relaxing yet productive atmosphere of your local coffee shop with these coffee shop-themed quote posters. Put on some calming instrumental music in the background during student work time to enrich the experience!

Board Games-Themed Quotes Posters

A board game classroom theme is a lot of fun and a great way to “game-ify” your class. These quotes are about topics related to success, happiness, and the “game of life”.

Movie-Themed Quotes Posters

Encourage your students to be courageous and be themselves with these movie-themed quote posters!

Rainbow-Themed Quotes Posters

These bright and colorful quote posters are perfect for a rainbow-themed classroom! The quotes encourage students to celebrate their uniqueness and to love themselves.

Sports-Themed Quotes Posters

Many important life lessons come from participation in athletics and extracurricular activities, so these quote posters allow you to bring those lessons into your classroom! Quotes pertain to topics like teamwork, work ethic, and dedication.

Travel-Themed Quotes Posters

Bring the world into your classroom with these travel-themed quote posters that feature full color photographs from beautiful travel destinations!

Seasonal quote posters can be a fun way to celebrate the change of seasons and weather in your classroom in a way that is not related to any specific holiday. Check out the fall, winter, spring, and summer collections that are perfect for a rotating bulletin board!

Fall-Themed Quotes Posters

Winter-Themed Quotes Posters

Spring-Themed Quotes Posters

Summer-Themed Quotes Posters

Bulletin Board Ideas

Do you like the look of all of these quote posters and want to regularly change out your bulletin boards throughout the year? If so, you’ll love our epic printable quote poster bundle, which features all of the posters listed in this post for a total of 148 posters! Even better, in the bundle, you can get these posters for nearly 40% off, which is a major discount! Check them out here.

Are you looking for other classroom decoration ideas? If so, you might like this post all about our travel classroom decor!

Are you looking for some new teaching ideas to engage your students in your social studies class? If so, you’ll love our FREE guide: 5 Creative Projects to Ignite Student Engagement in Your Social Studies Class. These activities have both printable and digital options and can work for any social studies subject!

10 Travel Themed Classroom Decor Ideas

Travel Themed Classroom

Travel Themed Decor

If you love travel and are looking to switch up your classroom decor, this set of travel themed classroom decor will be a perfect fit! We’ve created 10 travel-themed classroom resources that are easy to implement and ready to display. Whether you decide to use a few or all of them, these travel-themed decorations will transform your classroom and excite your students!

Classroom Decor Ideas

Travel-Themed Classroom Rules and Expectations Posters

Our travel-themed rules and expectations come in both color and black & white, ready to print and editable! Whatever version you decide to use, each one comes with a title page and four rule cards covering the following:

Be Prepared
Be Punctual
Be Present
Be Polite

Around the World Skyline Posters

If you are a world history or social studies teacher, these world skyline posters can help transform your walls or bulletin boards! There are 52 silhouettes in total, and the set comes completely in black and white making it printer-friendly!

US Skyline Posters

Similar to our world skyline posters, these US skyline posters are perfect for any US History classroom! They cover over 50 major cities or landmarks in each state, and come in postcard size.

Inspirational Quotes Posters

These gorgeous travel-themed quotes posters will be a beautiful and meaningful addition to your classroom! Each quote is travel-themed and designed with full-color photographs. There are 8 posters in total that are ready to print and display!

Travel-Themed Character Traits Posters

These 12 character traits posters can remind your students of the skills they need to be successful, both in the classroom and in life. Designed using suitcases to connect to the travel theme, sample characteristics include traits such as a positive attitude, strong work ethic, integrity and more.

Daily Agenda Slides

Looking for some travel-themed daily agenda slide templates? These agenda slides feature a simple but professional theme that include daily and weekly templates with editable text boxes! This resource comes with 30 slides in total with a wide variety of designs that you can mix and match.

Travel-Themed Seating Chart Template and Boarding Passes

Aside from physical decorations, take your travel-themed classroom to another level with airplane-style seating! With our seating chart template, simply set your student’s desks into an airplane arrangement, designating row and seat numbers. When students enter class, have them pick up their assigned boarding pass to find their seat.

Travel-Themed Goals Worksheets

We’ve created a few travel-themed activities that can become decorations once completed. With these goal worksheets, your students can document a goal of theirs and record 3 actions steps they’ll need to take to accomplish it. There are three different themes to choose from!

Getting to Know You Flag Activity

This flag activity is a fun way to get to know your students, specifically where they are from (in terms of family heritage) and where they want to go. During this flag activity, students draw and color 3 flags and connect them to the proper locations on the map.

What’s in Your Suitcase?

In this final travel-themed activity, students create a collage of images that represent their identity, values, interests, and more. The suitcase concept is used as a metaphor of interactions, places, and experiences students carry with them everyday. This suitcase activity not only gives students the chance to reflect about who they are, but also helps build a sense of classroom community, especially if students share their suitcases with their peers.

Transform Your Classroom

Changing up your classroom’s decor can make such a difference in the feel of your room. If you’re interested in any of these decor ideas, check out our travel-themed decor bundle! It includes all 10 resources mentioned above at a deep discount to help you transform your classroom with little effort!

Want to see how we put some of these decor ideas into action? You can check out our corresponding video here. If you’re looking for more classroom decor ideas, check out our recent post on Classroom Decor Ideas for Social Studies. You can also see all of our classroom decoration resources in our TPT store here!

5 Vocabulary Activities for Middle School

Vocabulary Activities

Teaching Vocabulary

Are you looking for a way to make learning vocabulary more enjoyable for your students? Vocabulary plays an important role in our teaching, but sometimes has a reputation for being a bit boring. It certainly doesn’t need to be that way, and there are many strategies and tools available! This post will cover five different vocabulary activities that can be used with any vocabulary set, no matter what you teach. The best part is each activity is little to no prep on your end!

Middle School Vocabulary Activities

Frayer Model

This classic activity can be used to help students think about a word in multiple ways. The official model has the vocabulary word set in the middle. The rest of the model is filled with a definition, and image, as well as an example and non-example. Any vocabulary words work with this model, so the options are endless. However, this activity can be time-consuming for students, so we don’t recommend using a ton of vocabulary words unless you’ve set aside time to do so.

While we’ve just described the official Frayer Model, we prefer the model that includes the official definition, a definition in the student’s own words, using the word in a sentence, and then an image. We’ve created a resource with both options that you can find here.

One-Pager Templates

With one-pager templates, your students can pair their vocabulary words with images, definitions, or symbols that relate to that word. We’ve created this flexible resource that includes many different design options. You simply give students the design that corresponds to the number of vocabulary words they’re working on. Depending on whether you use the digital or printable option, you can even let your students choose the design they want to work with! This activity allows students to work with their creativity while getting a better understanding of the vocabulary.

Hexagonal Thinking

Hexagonal thinking is a relatively new method or activity that helps students make connections between different ideas and vocabulary words. While we like the general idea of linking vocabulary words to other vocabulary words, we’ve found the original version of hexagonal thinking activities to be a bit too unstructured, at least at the middle school level. Instead, we’ve decided to create this more structured alternative that helps students build on the original idea. This activity is meant to help your students tap into higher-order thinking. Since your students must come up with these related words, it forces them to dive deeper into their understanding of each word.

Graphic Organizer

If you’re looking for something easy and straightforward, we’ve created this graphic organizer that’s specifically made to work with your textbook or reading passages. In this activity, students will write out the vocabulary word, definition, and related words that connect to the original word. In this respect, it’s similar to the hexagonal thinking activity, but more bare bones. You can also adjust the number of boxes to correlate to the number of vocabulary words students are working with. While this resource may be simple, sometimes the basics are what can end up being most helpful!

Vocabulary Games

A fun resource that’s great for assessment or review are these three vocabulary games. The first is our vocabulary dice game where students roll dice to move around the board. Whatever number they get they must complete the task to move forward. It’s a perfect group game or even a class game with teams!

The second game is our picture guessing game, set up similar to Pictionary. This game can be played in groups or pairs where one student draws an image and the others guess what the word is.

The final game included is a password game. Students work in pairs or as a class to guess which vocabulary word is the password to a one-word clue. More one-word clues can be given until the vocabulary word is guessed. The sooner students guess the word, the more points are awarded.

Vocabulary Teaching Strategies

All of these activities can be done with any set of vocabulary words, and if you are interested in everything we shared today, consider checking out our Vocabulary Activities Bundle! This bundle contains all 5 activities mentioned above in one single place to use effortlessly (and for a discounted price!). Make teaching vocabulary more enjoyable for you and your students!

If you liked this post, consider watching the corresponding video here. If you’re interested in more vocabulary activities, check out our blog post on 8 Social Studies Vocabulary Activities.

How to Teach Geography: Geo-Power

How to Teach Geography

Teaching Geography

There are certainly many different ways to teach geography to your students (and types of geography to teach and focus on), but is the way you’re teaching working? When we were students, and even in our first year of teaching, we noticed the traditional way of teaching geography wasn’t working. Typically with geography, students might be given a map to work with for a day or two, take a quiz, and once the quizzes were graded and handed back, the lessons would continue. There might not be any encouragement for students to build on their knowledge, and they probably forgot the information immediately. We didn’t see the point in that, so we decided to create our own teaching program which we call Geo-Power.

What is Geo-Power?

What makes Geo-Power different from the traditional teaching method? For one, this system breaks down different geographical locations over an extended period of time. Students build upon their knowledge by continuing to practice and review what they learned previously, while also learning new information. In the first school I taught at, I was able to see this firsthand. I taught 6th, 7th, and 8th grade Social Studies, so the year after doing Geo-Power with my 6th graders, I randomly asked my 7th graders about the 80 countries when we had extra time after a lesson. To my delight, they were still able to identify all 80 countries, even though it had been over 9 months since they had completed everything!

Using Geo-Power in the Classroom

How do you set this system up in your classroom? First, hand out the set of flashcards for the week, which contains only 5 countries. Students will cut out the cards to create their flashcards. You’ll display the review slideshow to help your students practice the new countries. Depending on how many countries you decide to cover, each round only covers 5 countries, so the amount of rounds may vary. Each round of flashcards typically spans 2 weeks, and once each one is complete, students are given a quick assessment quiz. As the program continues, students are responsible for up to 3 additional past rounds per quiz, up to 20 countries total that switch out on a rotating basis. When all rounds of geo-power are complete, there is a final exam.

Benefits of Geo-Power

Some may suggest that this program is unnecessary, given all the mapping tools we have today. However, in our experience, having these geographical locations memorized can be helpful in several important ways. This system gives students an easy study tool that they can not only use for review, but continue learning about these places as well. It can start discussions about different cultures and connect to other lessons students will learn about during the year. One of the best benefits is connecting with current events. When students have that baseline geographical knowledge, they can better understand where current events are happening and why those locations matter. Geo-Power will increase your students’ geography retention in a more fun and meaningful way!

Geography Resources

Originally, this was created to be a full-year program consisting of 16 rounds with 80 countries total, and you can find that bundle here. It includes all the flashcards, slideshows, quizzes, and exams you need to complete the program with no effort! However, we know not everyone can commit to the full program or may have different geography needs. Therefore, we’ve designed 3 smaller sets, and if you’re still not sure and want to try out our Geo-Power program before fully committing, we have a perfect freebie for you here! It contains one full round with flashcards, a slideshow, and a quiz!

Ancient Civilizations

This Ancient Civilizations geography set is a 6-round version with 30 countries. It includes all the necessary flashcards, slideshows, quizzes, and final exam with answer keys. It’s tailored specifically to Ancient Civilization curriculum and spans about 12 weeks.

United States History

Like the Ancient Civilization set, this US History geography resource is a 6-round program. It’s the perfect resource for US History teachers looking to add geography activities to their classroom.

Spanish Speaking Countries

Our Spanish-Speaking geography set is slightly smaller, with 4 rounds that cover 20 countries where Spanish is the official language. This no-prep bundle is a great addition to the secondary Spanish classroom!

If you liked this post on Geo-power, you can watch the corresponding video here, and if you’re looking for more teaching tips, consider our blog post on creative social studies teaching strategies.