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By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Nov 28, 2023 Día de los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead, is celebrated each year on November 1st and 2nd. This special day is celebrated in central and southern Mexico. It is also celebrated in other areas around the world. On the Day of the Dead, people set aside time to celebrate…
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Sept 30, 2023 Looking for a rigorous ELA activity to engage your students during Halloween week? These Halloween figurative language activities are just the thing to keep the sugar fueled teens engaged while reading and responding to classic literature. I love this activity because it has students reading excerpts from a wide variety…
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Oct 2, 2023 Fall has always been my favorite season. By the time October comes around, I have typically hit my stride in the classroom, and students are well versed in our classroom routines. In this post I share 3 favorite Fall projects for Middle School. These are tried-and-true activities that up the…
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Feb 9, 2024 Teaching Freak the Mighty Teacher friends who have been following me on the blog for a while know how passionate I am about the powerful teaching tool that is the middle school novel study. I strongly believe that the novel study can be the backbone of the middle school ELA…
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Dec 12, 2023 Ancient Civilizations Unit Teaching Ideas As a middle school history teacher, I have always found Ancient Civilizations to be super engaging to learn about and teach. That being said, I am the first to admit that relying on boring old textbooks and tired curriculum can turn even the most interesting…
By MARISSA DESPINS Updated Nov 23, 2023 Do you integrate the arts into your regular classroom curriculum? Before leaving the classroom, I spent 10 years as an arts integration specialist. Through doing this, I had the opportunity to witness the benefits of Art Integration first hand. Working as an arts integration specialist meant that I taught…