Diane from Fifth in the Middle is HERE!!

I am so excited that Tina asked me to guest post on her blog! My name is Diane, and my blog is

I live in Iowa with my husband of ten years and our two young daughters. My interests include the Iowa Hawkeyes (woo!), all things technology (especially Apple products), and crafting (if I ever get the time). And organizing. I should probably mention that I have some OCD tendencies. Like I've used the same mechanical pencil since my first year teaching, which is why I can't understand students who lose their pencils after one day. And everything must have a proper tab or label. And that I only use my three-hole punch when putting things in binders. All of the papers have to be even, right?! I asked for and received a new electric three-hole punch for Christmas :)

This is my fourteenth year of teaching, and it has all been in fifth grade. Up until this year, it has also been in the same room. This is my first year of teaching fifth grade in the middle school (hence the name of my blog). My district moved my entire grade to the brand-new middle school to address our crowding issues at the two elementaries. Although what I'm teaching isn't much different (I dropped math and picked up another social studies section), the whole transition has been somewhat stressful. The dynamics of the middle school are totally different than at the intermediate school, and that has taken some adjusting.

So now I'm teaching one section of literacy and three sections of social studies, so I guess that makes it my favorite class to teach. And I actually do enjoy the fifth grade social studies curriculum quite a bit. I had my choice of teaching three section of social studies or three sections of math. Although I do enjoy teaching math, it is much harder to address the difference in abilities. Social studies just lends itself to so many stories, and that is what I really enjoy about it. And the fact that the history of the United States from Native Americans to the American Revolution doesn't change from year to year, it really allows me to become somewhat of an expert! However, it seems that most blogs and TpT stores are geared towards ELA and math. So if anyone knows of some good fifth grade social studies blog, drop me a note!

Now that I've told you a little about myself, I'm going to highlight some of my most popular posts.

Last fall, I blogged about {my experience} with the milk crate seats that everyone was pinning. As an update, they are holding up pretty well! I might recover them with a thicker plastic. The shower curtain liner has gotten some holes and tears in them. They are a little short for the fifth graders when they are using them at my kidney table, but they still seem to like them. Their favorite thing to do is line them up and lay down on them :)

We have also had great success with our {No Late Work Club}. The number of students taking responsibility for getting their work in on time has increased over the course of the year. Naturally, there will still be that 5-10% who still don't care, but most of the students are motivated by it. For our year-end celebration, we are taking the students who qualify to a morning matinee at a theatre followed by lunch in the park and some outside playtime.

My blog is also home to the {Blogs by State linky}. Maybe you have seen the buttons on other blogs. At last count, there were over 600 blogs linked up! If you come over by clicking on the picture, you will be taken to the main page. From there, click on your region to find your specific state. From there, join like you would any other linky. Hopefully you can find some new blogs from your part of the country!

Thanks for having me, Tina!