Best of, Middle School

At the end of each school year, I ask teachers to recommend their favorite lessons and resources. And at the beginning of each school year, I share them. ICYMI: Here are the responses from elementary teachers.  

And here are the lessons your middle school colleagues will make time to do again this year no matter what, plus additional comments/links from me in brackets.  

Mandy Ramesar, Polson Middle School 6th-8th Social Studies, wrote: "I taught aspects of the Montana during the Great War unit.  We focused on the Great War scavenger hunt online.  It was a great resource to introduce Montana's contributions during WWI.  We also created a Montana character during the Great War.  It was amazing to see how creative students were when creating a Montanan during this time.  

6th-8th grade art teacher April Valerie Jimenez from Browning recommends Ledger Art. [I don't know if this is what April uses, but here is a link to our ledger art lesson plans.]  

Abbey Kochel, 7th grade Montana history and geography teacher at Castle Rock Middle School in Billings, plans to incorporate more information about the Hmong refugees who moved to Billings this next year. She has long retold what she knew of the story of her childhood friend, whose family fled Laos in the early 1980s. After a harrowing journey, they arrived at a refugee camp in Thailand and then, sponsored by St. Luke's Church were able to move to Billings. Recently, her friend's brother wrote and self-published a sixty-eighth page book about the family's experience--Freedom Crossing: A Laotian Family's Daring Escape Across the Mekong River--which Abbey plans to use this year. [Montana Mosaic: Twentieth Century People and Events Chapter 5  features information about the Hmong in Missoula starting at 13:22. Find the video here, and the user guide here.]   

Steve Morris, 6th-8th, Roosevelt Middle School, Red Lodge, does a unit on "Montana's Mysterious 3-7-77 History."  

Anonymous: Teach about Indian reservations & tribes of Montana & boarding school dorms and cultural changes for Native Americans.  

Gary Carmichael, who teaches computer coding/programming at Whitefish Middle School Grades to Grades 7th and 8th, wrote: "I had students (Grade 8) code an interactive quiz using the information they learned in their Montana History class. 

Do you have a lesson, resource, or strategy you love? It's not too late to share it! Send it to me at mkohl@mt.gov and I'll share it out.  

P.S. We had to migrate our website to a new platform, which may have led to some broken links. We can usually fix bad links quickly if we know about them. Will you help us identify problems by emailing me any broken links you find? Pretty please?