Looking for ideas for elective classes to create for middle school grades 5th through 7th

[Mosaic2021]

Good afternoon,
I teach 5th and some 6th grade sections of ELA at a Catholic school. Our middle school team may each have the opportunity to teach 1 elective available to 5th, 6th, and 7th grade to choose from and we have the opportunity to choose or suggest ideas for those elective classes. Could you share any ideas for electives that middle schoolers would be interested in that wouldn't be too overwhelming to prepare in addition to our regular reading classes? Thank you so much for your creative ideas!

 

[c6g]

Perhaps something related to personal finance, including banking, stock market basics, etc. This might be helpful: 16 Free Banking Worksheets PDF (Teach Kids how to Use Banks)

 

[tctrojan]

Board games if it does not have to be "academic".

 

[ZipLine]

School newspaper?

 

[JanetL]

Welcome to PT!
What about an ecology club?

 

[MissESL]

• Financial Literacy - with a real world simulation at the end
• Agriculture
• Art
• Inventors & Inventions - end with wax museum project or own invention “plan”
• Broadcasting (YouTube) Channel
• Creative Writing or Short Stories - Student Treasures publishes student work for free if you have a group of 11 or more.
• Book Circles - choose 4-6 books and groups of students progress at their own pace

 

[Singvogel]

I'm in a small district, so our 6-8 "electives" are teacher-interest and knowledge-based. Some that the students enjoyed were:

• culinary/cooking (accomplished with hotplates and tabletop ovens)
• fiber crafts- needlepoint, cross stitch, macrame, crochet, knitting
• photography
• theater
• gaming- Minecraft e-sports, creating breakout games, Swift playground

 

[whatever]

We have several that are one semester only so they technically get to pick two--Health, Life Skills, Creative Writing, Mythology, Conservation (with Hunter Ed certification,) Publications (for the MS newsletter,) STEM, and Art.

 

[teachnkids]

Gardening
Coding

 

[Mosaic2021]

Thanks, everyone! After talking with my dean today, I decided to go with a Creative Writing elective. I am excited to see how it evolves!

 

[apple annie]

My school has band, orchestra, Spanish, STEM, art, PE (personal fitness, and wellness) and TA (teacher assistant). They all last one semester only except for band and orchestra, which are the whole year long. We have also had drama and choir in the past, but don't have those teachers currently.

If they are more driven by teacher interest and skill that could be so fun! Photography, textile arets, crafting, pottery, calligraphy, creative writing, book club, a sport, gardening, environmental issues, Bible, current events, newspaper/newsletter, geography, cooking, so many more.

 

[Queenie Peavy]

Could you do TSA competitions? Google Technology Student Association.

 

[m1tuck]

Good afternoon,
I teach 5th and some 6th grade sections of ELA at a Catholic school. Our middle school team may each have the opportunity to teach 1 elective available to 5th, 6th, and 7th grade to choose from and we have the opportunity to choose or suggest ideas for those elective classes. Could you share any ideas for electives that middle schoolers would be interested in that wouldn't be too overwhelming to prepare in addition to our regular reading classes? Thank you so much for your creative ideas!

Dear Mosaic: I also teach Middle School English, and have been trying to pepper my classes with poetry and literature that might appeal to younger minds, and not be too overwhelming. Believe it or not, I taught George Orwell's "Animal Farm" last year to my 6th Grade class, and Shakespeare's Sonnets to 7th Grade. While some of the vocabulary in Orwell's classic was challenging, the story has more meat to it than "Charlotte's Web" while continuing the thought that animals can talk and organize themselves. These concepts were entertaining to my class, and yes, there is a movie (or two) animated (cartoon) and live-action animation (more "Babe"-like) that I treated the class to, after we had completed the 59-page, no pictures, all-text book. Shakespeare's Sonnets and other contemporary Youth Poets (like Amanda Gorman, for example) provide a wide variety of styles of poetry. The challenge with Shakespeare is always the language, but I find that keeping the focus on meter and form, and then give the children the gamut to play with ideas, concepts, focal points to direct their poetry while trying to maintain form and meter. Just a few thoughts for you there, good luck!

 

[m1tuck]

Good afternoon,
I teach 5th and some 6th grade sections of ELA at a Catholic school. Our middle school team may each have the opportunity to teach 1 elective available to 5th, 6th, and 7th grade to choose from and we have the opportunity to choose or suggest ideas for those elective classes. Could you share any ideas for electives that middle schoolers would be interested in that wouldn't be too overwhelming to prepare in addition to our regular reading classes? Thank you so much for your creative ideas!

Dear Mosaic:
Call me a classicist, but I have been doing Shakespeare's Sonnets with my 7th & 8th Graders for several years now. His sonnets are short, and there's plenty of breakdowns of the "contemporary" language on YouTube if it's something new to you. But the best part is it is easy to see the differentiation with my students in this activity. Yes, there are always a few "poetry writers" and they often have a head start, but the concepts of rhyming and how much you can say in just a few words (I usually bring up song lyrics at the same time--yes, even "clean" rap!) so that the classes can identify with the poetry and start to create on their own. Back to differentiation, some students will get the whole concept -- number of lines (14), (3) quatrains and (1) couplet, even the iambic pentameter (da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum) -- so I can easily grade on what they are able to digest and produce, helping and guiding them along the way by only assigning a quatrain (four, 10-syllable lines) at a time, and then the final couplet, and providing feedback where/when necessary. Just a thought. Good luck!