Hi All,

In the fall, I'm going to be taking a position as a Team Leader with an after school initiative where I will be training and supporting volunteer teachers. I will also be leading 8-12 middle school students through out the school year in various academic activities and fieldtrips. My background is in after-school program management from an admin perspective and this will be my first time working hand-on with middle school students.  I'm pumped, but realize I could use some help! I would love to get recommendations for great classroom management books for first time teachers and also community organizing books as that is another aspect of the job.

Thanks for your help!

Jen Karydas :)

~~~~~~I have a book on my bookshelf that might be perfect for you.~~~~~~

It is:  How To Manage Your Middle School Classroom (TCM548)

by Teacher Created Materials. It is a book that I brought new and it is in excellent condition.

Check it out. My shelf has over 70 books!

Hope this helps you!

From Happyreader2

I am going into my second year teaching. My lifesafer this year was The Organized Teacher by Steve Springer. Nobody has it available here, but its worth the money. Powells.com has it for $8.98.

thank you so much! I will look into it. :)

I teach a Classroom Management course and these are the texts I use -

Shouting Won't Grow Dendrites - Marcia L. Tate, EdD  Excellent summary of research, VERY teacher friendly and easy to read.  My students love this book, along with her other "dendrite" books.

The First Days of School - Harry Wong   Highly recommended.  Easy to read, yet research based.  I first read it after 30 years in the classroom and "relearned" so much from it.

Qualities of Effective Teachers, Second Edition  I can't remember the author.  He summarizes the research.  One selling point is that he specifically addresses high-achievers, low-achievers, and ELL student characteristics.

Books or authors I'd recommend:  Carolyn Tomlinson - deals with differentiating instruction

Conscious Classroom Management by Rich Smith

There is another one I have in my classroom, but I can't think of the author's name to save my life - it deals specifically with middle school.  I will be in there next week, so I'll look it up for you.

Another great resource is www.ascd.org  Their website is awesome and if you go into their publications, they have a lot of affordable, well researched, easy to read books on everything-teacher!  Go into their publications and review their archieved articles for Educational Leadership - There are specific issues that deal with middle school and tweens. They have a variety of membership prices (you can review many of the articles for free) and I have found it to be well worth the price.

If I can help  you any more, feel free to PM me.

Good luck, I personally worship middle school teachers!

I agree with the recommendation of The First Days of School by Harry Wong.  No beginning teacher should be without that book!

I love The First Days of School by Harry Wong.  It is easy to read an not intimidating at all.  I read it and used suggestions from it when I began teaching 10 years ago.  It really helped.

I've been reading "The First Six weeks of School".  Very good especially for beginner teachers.