The modern classroom can seem stifling and boring to middle schoolers, especially during this time of a pandemic. Rules and regulations may keep teachers and students from participating in the fun, hands-on learning experiences that have traditionally captured student’s attention and curiosity. Field trips, classroom visits and other activities that students loved have had to be put aside. For some students those are the driving forces behind their learning. Here are three ways school can turn the ordinary into something extraordinary and reignite the love for learning in their classroom. 

Bust Out a Book Report

Big projects like book reports can make or break a classroom experience for a lot of students. For some, book reports are a deterrent to reading. When your reward for finishing a book is to write a report there isn’t an incentive to get that reading done. A quick switch is to incorporate creative middle school book reports that will have students racing to the end of their book and chomping at the bit to start their book report. These creative projects can include:

• Cereal Box Book Reports

• Book Adaptations
• Book Shirts

These projects can allow students to be creative, to create tangible projects and give students something that can break up the monotony of school. 

Virtual Field Trips

In this brand new age most classrooms are equipped with technology that classrooms five years ago could only dream about. The best thing too, is that if your student is in a digital classroom, attending via Zoom or another program, they can do this as well. Since bussing to field trip spots are out of the question now for most students why not take a digital field trip? Digital field trip locations can be local institutions that have created digital tours to landmarks worldwide such as:

• The National Children’s Museum 
• The Wild Center
• The Pyramids of Giza
• The Louvre 

This gives you access to places and resources that can enhance your lessons immensely. It also allows students to learn about, and see images and places that just years ago they may have not had access to. 

Interactive Presentations

Every teacher has to rely on presentations at one time or another in their classroom. For some students, presentations are an open invitation to close their eyes and take a little nap. Teachers can make use of interactive presentations that allow students to actively participate in realtime to engage students. This is an excellent way to:

• Make sure that students are actively engaged
• Help students that are struggling with concepts
• Praise students for participating

Create Competition

There are several digital formats that teachers can use in their classroom to create competition between students and create fun learning experiences. Test and unit reviews are essential in preparing students, but replacing the traditional lecture session with review games can take the activity to the next level. Some easy ways to do this are:

• Using a class quiz where students work in teams, like Jeopardy
• Using programs like Kahoot or Gimikit, where students can compete against one another. 

Gamifying a classroom allows for students to team build, to compete and to work together towards a common goal. Hopefully these unique ideas can help  break up the monotony of daily busywork and reignite the love of learning again for your students.