Middle School Makeover is a guide for parents and educators to help the tweens in their lives navigate the socially fraught hallways, gyms, and cafeterias of middle school. The book helps parents, teachers, and other adults in middle school settings to understand the social dilemmas and other issues that kids today face. Author Michelle Icard covers a large range of topics, beginning with helping us understand what is happening in the brains of tweens and how these neurological development affects decision-making and questions around identity. She also addresses social media, dating, and peer exclusion. Using both recent research and her personal, extensive experience working with middle-school-aged kids and their parents, Icard offers readers concrete and practical advice for guiding children through this chaotic developmental stage while also building their confidence.

Educators, politicians, parents, and even students are consumed with speaking the language of academic achievement. Yet something is missing in the current focus on accountability, standardized testing, and adequate yearly progress. If schools continue to focus the conversation on rigor and accountability and ignore more human elements of education, many students may miss out on opportunities to discover the richness of individual exploration that schools can foster. In The Best Schools, Armstrong urges educators to leave narrow definitions of learning behind and return to the great thinkers of the past 100 years—Montessori, Piaget, Freud, Steiner, Erikson, Dewey, Elkind, Gardner—and to the language of human development and the whole child. The Best Schools highlights examples of educational programs that are honoring students' differences, using developmentally appropriate practices, and promoting a humane approach to education that includes the following elements: * An emphasis on play for early childhood learning. * Theme- and project-based learning for elementary school students. * Active learning that recognizes the social, emotional, and cognitive needs of adolescents in middle schools. * Mentoring, apprenticeships, and cooperative education for high school students. Educators in "the best schools" recognize the differences in the physical, emotional, cognitive, and spiritual worlds of students of different ages. This book will help educators reflect on how to help each student reach his or her true potential, how to inspire each child and adolescent to discover an inner passion to learn, and how to honor the unique journey of each individual through life.

Young teens undergo multiple changes that seem to set them apart from other students. But do middle schools actually meet their special needs? The authors describe some of the challenges and offer ways to tackle them, such as reassessing the organization of grades K-12; specifically assisting the students most in need; finding ways to prevent disciplinary problems; and helping parents understand how they can help their children learn at home.

The first book in the doggone awesome, howl-ariously illustrated, bestselling series from the creator of Middle School! Rafe Khatchadorian’s lovable dog Junior gets his chance to shine. Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! I've been waiting for ages to tell my story, and now it's finally happening! Being Rafe's dog isn't always easy, but it is always EXCITING! I've got so much to tell you about: How I protect the yard from birds, raccoons, squirrels, raccoons, mail carriers ... and did I mention RACCOONS? Sniffing pooch posteriors for the latest canine news. And the terrifying monster hiding in the hall closet: the vacuum cleaner! These were all the most paw-some parts of my doggie life -- until the evil Mrs. Stricker threatened to send me back to the pound if I didn't learn to behave. Now Rafe and I have to go to obedience school and win the trophy for Best Trained Dog . . . or else!

Young people learn most readily when their imaginations are engaged and teachers teach most successfully when they are able to see their subject matter from their pupils' point of view. It is, however, difficult to define imagination in practice and even more difficult to make full use of its potential. In this original and stimulating book, Kieran Egan, winner of the prestigous Grawemeyer award for education in 1991, discusses what imagination really means for children and young people in the middle years and what its place should be in the midst of the normal demands of classroom teaching and learning. Egan uses a bright and witty style to move from a brief history of the ways in which imagination has been regarded over the years, through a general discussion of the links between learning and imagination. A selection of sample lesson plans show teachers how they can encourage effective learning through stimulating pupils' imaginations in a variety of curriculum areas, including maths, science, social studies and language work.

Creating the Balance: Parenting Through the Middle School Years is an essential read for parents of ten through fourteen-year-olds, providing insights from a school counselor who has guided students through the challenging years of middle school for decades. It serves as a reference guide for navigating topics including: staying connected to your child; choosing the right school; guidance about social issues and peers; countering negative influences; bullying; managing cell phones and other screens; handling learning and behavior problems at home and school; coping with grief, divorce, and blended families; talking to kids about sex; preparing for high school; recognizing at-risk behaviors; when to seek professional help and more. It gives understanding to middle school behavior and suggests practical tools to nurture and encourage adolescents to be successful learners and emotionally healthy.

A counselor and popular Washington Post contributor offers a new take on grades 6-8 as a distinct developmental phase--and the perfect time to set up kids to thrive. Middle school is its own important, distinct territory, and yet it's either written off as an uncomfortable rite of passage or lumped in with other developmental phases. Based on her many years working in schools, professional counselor Phyllis Fagell sees these years instead as a critical stage that parents can't afford to ignore (and though "middle school" includes different grades in various regions, Fagell maintains that the ages make more of a difference than the setting). Though the transition from childhood to adolescence can be tough for kids, this time of rapid physical, intellectual, moral, social, and emotional change is a unique opportunity to proactively build character and confidence. Fagell helps parents use the middle school years as a low-stakes training ground to teach kids the key skills they'll need to thrive now and in the future, including making good friend choices, negotiating conflict, regulating their own emotions, be their own advocates, and more. To answer parents' most common questions and struggles with middle school-aged children, Fagell combines her professional and personal expertise with stories and advice from prominent psychologists, doctors, parents, educators, school professionals, and middle schoolers themselves.

When Rafe Khatchadorian enters middle school, he teams up with his best friend, "Leo the Silent," to create a game to make school more fun by trying to break every rule in the school's code of conduct.

OMG PAW G2G. Oh my god, parents are watching, got to go. Today’s text-messaging middle schoolers may seem like a different species from how parents remember themselves as sixth, seventh, and eighth graders. Children are often forced to confront serious issues like drugs, violence, sexuality, and technology at an age that would have been unthinkable even a decade ago. So it’s natural for parents to worry about these crucial years. Still, educator Joe Bruzzese believes that this time can be full of positive transformation as your child gains independence and your parental role shifts from omnipresent manager to supportive coach. Timely topics include cyberbullying, depression, and choosing realistic and rewarding extracurricular activities. The middle school years can and should be a time of exciting change and opportunity; A Parents’ Guide to the Middle School Years presents what you need to know to survive and thrive as a family.