Prepping Kids for Middle School
Although middle school is still months off for your students, now is a great time to begin discussing their upcoming transition with them. There was a time when I would only do middle school transition activities near the end of the school year, but in 2019 I began starting the discussion in December. I found that my students were very excited to start the conversation early.
In the post Middle School Transistion, I discussed a couple of questions I always ask my students to start the discussion about how they are feeling about leaving elementary school. I also mentioned possibly including questions like “How are feeling about going to middle school?” in your minute meetings if you conduct them. It’s a good idea to hold minute meetings at the beginning and in the middle of the school year. If you still plan to conduct them, you can still include those middle school transition questions to get an overall idea of how your students are feeling.
Middle School Transition Activities
Roll and Respond Discussion Starters are a great way to get conversations going for a variety of topics. My Middle School Transition Roll and Respond is a freebie for you today, so be sure to click the link or the picture below to get your copy.
This activity is a simple introduction to the middle school transiton topic early in the school year. All you need to do is make enough copies of the card on cardstock for your students to pair up. Be sure to laminate them so they can be reused over time. You’ll also need to have enough dice for each pair. Give the students enough time to take turns rolling and responding to statements. As they are chatting, walk around to listen and to participate in their discussions. After a set amount of time, you can go through each of the statements and have volunteers share about the discussions they had with their partners.
Another good discussion to have with your students early on is the power of ZERO. Elementary schools in my district don’t use number grades. Students have their first experience with number grades when they go to 6th grade. Have a mini math lesson with your students and show them how one zero can affect their overall grade point average. They need to know that an A average can quickly decrease to a C with just one zero. Talking about this early on will hopefully reach those students who may already be in the habit of not turning in all of their assignments and help them to think about how important it is to complete them.
Connecting With Feeder Middle School(s)
Starting your middle school transition focus earlier in the school year also gives you lots of time to collaborate with your feeder school(s). Make plans to schedule visits to the school(s) or to have some of their staff members and students come to visit your 5th graders.
We’ve done this many different ways over the years. We’ve had feeder schools send buses over to pick our students up for a middle school field trip. We’ve also had middle school bands come over to recruit new members. Additionally, since the pandemic, there are schools who have coordinated excellent virtual middle school visits too. There are so many options.
I find that a lot of times, these discussions are rushed near the end of the school year. Making a plan ahead of time when there is plenty of time to get questions answered and to have opportunities for students to tour their feeder schools is a big win for kids.
Exposing your students to the ins and outs of middle school and giving them several opportunities early on can help minimize the anxiety that many will be feeling about the transition. So start implementing those middle school transition activities now, and begin reaching out to the schools your students will feed into. Doing these things will make this big change for students less anxiety based and more exciting.
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